What is Avalanche?
Avalanche (AVAX) is a Layer-1 blockchain launched in 2020 by Ava Labs and Emin Gun Sirer's team at Cornell. It is designed as a platform for many interoperable chains - its core innovation is the Avalanche consensus protocol, a family of metastable consensus algorithms that reach finality in under two seconds.
The network is made up of three primary chains: the X-Chain for asset transfers, the C-Chain for EVM-compatible smart contracts, and the P-Chain for staking and validator coordination. Developers can also launch custom 'subnets' - sovereign chains with their own rules, validators and token economics.
How does Avalanche work?
Avalanche consensus is based on repeated random sampling: each validator polls a small random subset of peers, and if a supermajority agrees on a value, the validator flips its preference toward that value. Over many rounds this converges to deterministic finality in a fraction of a second, even with thousands of validators.
AVAX is the native token for staking, paying fees and bootstrapping subnets. Subnets can require their validators to stake AVAX on the P-Chain, which means the base asset accrues value as the subnet ecosystem grows - a model Avalanche has aggressively marketed to gaming and enterprise customers.