What is Avalanche (AVAX)?

Avalanche is a layer-one blockchain that serves as a platform for decentralized applications and custom blockchain networks. It is considered one of Ethereum’s competitors, aiming to overthrow it as the most popular blockchain for smart contracts. It relies on a higher transaction throughput of up to 6,500 transactions per second without compromising scalability.

Avalanche has achieved this thanks to its unique design. The Avalanche network consists of three separate blockchains: X-Chain, C-Chain, and P-Chain. Each chain has an independent purpose, and thus differs radically from the approach used by Bitcoin and Ethereum where all nodes validate all transactions. Avalanche blockchains also use different consensus mechanisms based on their use cases.

After launching its mainnet in 2020, Avalanche has been developing its own ecosystem of decentralized applications and decentralized finance. Various Ethereum-based projects such as SushiSwap and TrueUSD have integrated with Avalanche. Moreover, the platform is constantly working on improving interoperability between its ecosystem and Ethereum, by developing bridges.