Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche is a network that allows for decentralized applications and smart contracts. AVAX is its native token.

Developers can build decentralized applications with almost instant transaction speeds and some of the lowest fees of any network.

Avalanche can make 4,500 transactions per second per subnet (there are lots of subnets) plus it has a transaction finality of three seconds. That means that transactions will complete in just three seconds. Compare this to Ethereum which could take 10 minutes to complete a transaction (and cost hundreds in fees).

Avalanche is also one of the most secure blockchains because someone would need to control 80% of the AVAX tokens in order to control the network. In comparison, someone would only need 51% of all staked Ethereum coins to control the Ethereum network.

Avalanche Blockchains

There are actually three blockchains within the Avalanche network.

The X chain is for creation, management and transactions of tokens on the network.

The C chain is for smart contracts. When you interact with decentralized applications on Avalanche, you are using the C chain. For developers, the C chain is an exact copy of the Ethereum Virtual Machine. It allows developers to move their Dapps from Ethereum over to Avalanche easily.

The P chain is for managing the subnets and validator nodes.

Avalanche Subnets

What is an Avalanche subnet? To put simply, it’s a network within the Avalanche network. Each subnet can have its own blockchains with their own consensus models. You can choose between proof or work, proof of stake etc when creating a blockchain within a subnet.

They can also be either private or public blockchains and have their own virtual machines. So you could create a blockchain with a copy of the Ethereum virtual machine and run Ethereum dApps.

Avalanche is basically a blockchain-building ecosystem. Anybody looking to create a blockchain doesn’t need to do it from scratch. They can create one within the Avalanche ecosystem.

AVAX Coin

There is a maximum supply of 720 million AVAX coins, which means it is deflationary. AVAX is a governance token which means the more you have and stake the more voting power you have for the network.