Avalanche is a high-performance smart contract platform that intends to solve the main problems inherent in most blockchains. Naturally, in pursuit of the title of Ethereum killer, many other platforms were created — Polkadot, Solana, Polygon, and others. Still, Avalanche has a number of exciting features that help it break into the leaders. We invite you to take a deep dive into the Avalanche project and find out what advantages it provides to users.
What Is Avalanche?
Avalanche is a fast, scalable, and decentralized platform for developers of decentralized applications (dapps). The platform allows users to create fast and cost-effective EVM-compatible dapps as well as flexible and compatible private and public blockchains (subnets). Avalanche is designed to eliminate some of the limitations of older platforms, including low transaction speed, centralization, and scalability. If in numbers, Avalanche can support more than 6500 transactions per second with an absolute finality in 2 seconds. This speed is achieved thanks to the modular Avalanche architecture and an innovative consensus algorithm.
Avalanche Architecture
simThanks to its modular architecture, Avalanche is able to achieve a high level of scalability and speed without sacrificing decentralization and security. The Avalanche platform consists of three interacting blockchains:
X-Chain (Exchange). This is a decentralized blockchain for working with digital assets. Allows users to create and exchange digital assets.
P-Chain (Platform). This is a metadata blockchain that coordinates the work of validators and allows users to create and manage subnets.
C-Chain (Contract). The blockchain is designed to create smart contracts. As part of this blockchain, developers are building EVM-compatible dapps.
- Consensus Mechanism
The P-Chain and C-Chain blockchains are protected by an optimized Snowman consensus. This ensures high throughput and security for smart contracts. The X-Chain is functioning based on the Avalanche consensus algorithm. This is a protocol that can achieve transaction finality in seconds.
- Avalanche consensus mechanism
The revolutionary Avalanche consensus mechanism is based on an optimized directed acyclic graph (DAG) protocol. Its essence is that transactions are processed not linearly but in parallel. This approach allows the platform to achieve low latency, high throughput, and a leading level of security. In addition, the developers have set a low entry threshold for validators — to become a validator, you need to stake 2,000 AVAX. Due to such a low threshold, the network has thousands of validators, boosting decentralization.
- Snowman consensus mechanism
Snowman is a modified Avalanche consensus protocol. This protocol is perfectly suitable for operations performed within the P-Chain and C-Chain. Transactions in Snowman are added to blocks linearly rather than executed in parallel.
Avalanche Use Cases
In the crypto world, Avalanche is widely recognized as an improved copy of Ethereum. Avalanche provides the same tools as Ethereum. Only it works faster and cost-effectively. In addition, Avalanche has its own Avalanche Virtual Machine (AVM), which is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Thus, within the Avalanche, developers can create their own digital assets, non-fungible tokens, as well as decentralized applications. Furthermore, due to compatibility with the Ethereum toolkit, developers can easily transfer their Ethereum dapps to Avalanche. Moreover, the platform allows individuals and companies to easily deploy their own blockchains for both private (permitted) and public use.
Avalanche solutions are already used by such famous projects as SushiSwap, Mastercard, Binance, TrueUSDT, 1Inch, Aave, Bitgo, and hundreds of others.
$AVAX Token
AVAX coin is a native currency of the Avalanche platform. The coin is used to pay network fees, staking, and provide a “basic unit of account” between subnets. To counter deflation, the developers have implemented a burning mechanism — that is, all fees in the Avalanche network are burned. Users receive up to 11% APY on AVAX staking. Everyone who wants to become a validator must stake at least 2,000 AVAX.
Avalanche Benefits
To date, Avalanche is in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. So naturally, such success would not have been achieved without the unique features valuable to developers and ordinary users. The main advantages of the Avalanche include:
Consensus mechanism. Avalanche is capable of supporting several thousand transactions per second with an absolute finality in less than 2 seconds.
Compatibility. The blockchain can interact both within a subnet and between them. This allows users to support the inter-chain transfer of values. Subnets complement each other.
Inclusivity. Many blockchains allow only a limited number of validators to participate in reaching consensus, and Avalanche allows anyone who makes a bet of at least 2,000 AVAX.
Decentralization. Avalanche has over a thousand validator nodes, making it one of the most secure and decentralized platforms. In many ways, this is all since, to become a validator, there is no need to buy expensive equipment; even a regular laptop will do.
Conclusion
Avalanche is a high-performance platform that can be an excellent alternative for developers who do not want to pay high network fees and put up with congestion while building on Ethereum. The platform is in the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market cap and has yet to overtake competitors such as Cardano and Solana. Nevertheless, thanks to the modular architecture, an effective consensus algorithm, and support from investors, the project has every chance to become neck and neck with the leading smart contract platform.