Avalanche (AVAX) is a decentralized, open-source smart contracts platform designed for scalability, high throughput, and low latency, to support decentralized applications (dApps) and custom blockchain networks. Avalanche was launched by Ava Labs, a company founded by Cornell researchers including Emin Gün Sirer.
The native token of Avalanche, AVAX, is used for transaction fee payment, staking to secure the network, and as a basic unit of account among the multiple subnets that comprise the Avalanche network. AVAX's utility is rooted in the platform's unique architecture, which is designed around three primary blockchain networks: the Exchange Chain (X-Chain), the Platform Chain (P-Chain), and the Contract Chain (C-Chain).
Avalanche's C-Chain is fully compatible with Ethereum's development toolkit, including Solidity and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), making it easy for developers to port existing Ethereum dApps to Avalanche.
Avalanche's consensus mechanism combines aspects of Classical and Nakamoto consensus to offer rapid transaction finality while maintaining a high degree of decentralization and security. This consensus model allows Avalanche to achieve higher throughput orders than that of older blockchain systems, with the network capable of processing thousands of transactions per second while ensuring robust security and scalability, providing faster transaction times and lower fees.
Avalanche supports subnets, or subnetworks, which allow for the creation of customized blockchains with their own validators. Organizations and developers can launch tailored blockchain solutions that can operate with their own rules and governance models, while still benefiting from the security and interoperability of the broader Avalanche ecosystem. The flexibility of creating private or public blockchains on Avalanche caters to a wide range of use cases, from enterprise solutions to decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
