What Is Avalanche? The Layer 1 Blockchain's Environment To Know

What Is Avalanche? The Layer 1 Blockchain's Environment To Know

Avalanche is a fast-growing Layer 1 Proof-of-Stake blockchain and smart contracts platform. 

One of its most promising value propositions offers low-latency block times of about one second. With high-performance and full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Avalanche provides one of the best user experiences of any Layer 1 blockchains. 

As a scalable blockchain, Avalanche can achieve a high throughput of 4,500 transactions per second while preserving adequate centralization. Today, the network has the highest number of validators securing the network of any Proof-of-Stake protocol.

The Avalanche network is based on the Byzantine fault tolerance protocol first proposed in a 2018 research paper released by a pseudonymous group called Team Rocket. Later, Cornell University professor Emin Gün Sirer and other researchers improved and formalized the protocol. Soon after, Sirer began working on a smart contracts platform based on the consensus protocol. It was called Avalanche. After two years of technical development, Avalanche launched on the main net in September 2020.

Many of today’s decentralized networks are built on old consensus protocols that may face scaling issues. In many blockchain networks, block consensus is achieved with voting from nodes, but such consensus systems may struggle with scaling as the number of nodes increases. 

In comparison, Avalanche establishes consensus with random node sampling. The unique consensus system, coupled with a variety of cryptographic techniques, ensures that all of the actors in the network are on the same page. 

Avalanche is currently the only blockchain that accommodates more than a single blockchain with its own consensus. This design differs from other networks that use a virtual machine and a blockchain.

In its current form, the avalanche network consists of three integrated blockchains validated by a common set of validators: the Exchange Chain (X-Chain) for creating and exchanging assets, the Platform Chain (P-Chain) for creating subnets, and the contract Chain (C-Chain) for EVM contract execution. 

The bulk of the activity happens in the EVM-compatible C-Chain. It enjoys a finality of one to two seconds, which has helped it achieve rapid growth in the Defi space. 

Centered on scalability and ease of use, Avalanche provides the tools needed to create customized blockchains called subnets or subnetworks. A subnet is an independent blockchain on the Avalanche network run by its own set of validators.

As it is fully compatible with Ethereum assets and tools, Avalanche can cater to the diverse needs of the existing crypto developer ecosystem. Avalanche’s compatibility with the EVMlets developers seamlessly ports their decentralized applications over from Ethereum. 

The network is compatible with Meta Mask, the preferred Web3 wallet for Ethereum users. This means that Devi users interacting with Avalanche have a similar experience to using Ethereum. Through the Avalanche Bridge, users can easily port their assets to avalanche and enjoy the network’s cheap fees. 

Although Avalanche has been live on the main net for only a year, it already hosts an ecosystem of automated market makers (AMMs) and borrowing and lending protocols. It also supports various infrastructure projects consisting of wallets, oracles, storage and computing, and data analytics tools. 

Like many of its Layer 1 competitors, Avalanche Foundation has leveraged the AVAX token to incentivize the onboarding of new users onto the network

The program announced integrations of Aave and Curve, two of the most widely used Ethereum-native EFI applications. To incentivize usage, rewards are distributed in the nativeAVAX token. The program motivated thousands of crypto users to move their assets onto Avalanche via the network’s bridge.

As there is a growing boom in crypto, Defi, and making more and more space out there in the global market, getting more attraction and user and consumer attraction and connectivity, offering a variety of popular Defi applications, Avalanche is on the way to triumph on all network of the space’s top layer 1 network.