Avalanche
Note: Data in this section last updated August 26th, 2022
Avalanche (AVAX) is a smart contract platform focused on transaction speed, low costs, and composability. It was launched in 2020 by Emin Gün Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University.
The protocol claims two unique innovations:
A novel consensus mechanism that purports to have the “best of both worlds”, combining the speed and finality of Classical Consensus with the security and decentralization of Nakamoto Consensus.
Like ETH 2.0, it uses a modular – three blockchain architecture – that allows each chain to specialize in a task.
While Avalanche is fast (up to 4,500 TPS per chain and theoretically infinite with the addition of more subnets) and relatively cheap ($0.01 per transaction), its core focus has always been on “finality”, which is the time it takes to finalize a transaction. The project claims it will be able to complete transactions in <1 second, making it much quicker than Bitcoin (60 minutes), Ethereum (6 minutes) and even rival Solana.
Notable dApps in the Avalanche ecosystem include:
Avalanche Ecosystem Overview
What truly sets Avalanche apart, however, is its focus on DeFi and historical recent growth in that sphere. Although growth has declined, the protocol increased its TVL from $191 million at the start of Q32021 to $11 billion by the end of the year. That’s over 50x growth in six months!
Avalanche is also highly compatible with Ethereum, making it relatively easy for developers to move their apps between the two chains.
Some of the more common praises and criticisms of Avalanche are listed below:
At first blush, Avalanche seems like a strong project – solid performance, extreme growth and a loyal community. That said, I’m having trouble identifying the “moat” – I get that it’s clearly a sustaining innovation (i.e. potentially a better version of ETH) but I can’t see what’s disruptive about it (i.e. what ETH 2.0 can’t replicate).
Furthermore, given that Avalanche gave out over $180 million in developer incentives in the second half of 2021, it’s difficult to tell how much of their growth is organic and how much is “bought-and-paid-for” (always a risk because developers tend to leave when the money dries up).
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