What is Avalanche / $AVAX

• Avalanche is the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry, as measured by time-to-finality, and has the most validators securing its activity of any proof-of-stake protocol.
• Avalanche is an open, programmable smart contracts platform for decentralized applications.
• Build fast, low cost, solidity compatible dApps - launch Ethereum dApps that confirm transactions instantly and process thousands of transactions per second, far beyond any decentralized blockchain platform.
• Launch customized blockchains, private and public - deploy blockchains that fit your own application needs. build your own virtual machine and dictate exactly how the blockchain should operate.
• Scale to millions of validators with minimal hardware - Stake or lock up your $AVAX to help process transactions and further secure the platform - providing security guarantees well above the 51% standard
• Scalable Avalanche is designed to be massively scalable, robust, and efficient. The core consensus engine is able to support a global network of potentially hundreds of millions of internet-connected, low and high powered devices that operate seamlessly, with low latencies and very high transactions per second.
• Secure Avalanche is designed to be robust and achieve high security. Classical consensus protocols are designed to withstand up to f attackers, and fail completely when faced with an attacker of size f + 1 or larger, and Nakamoto consensus provides no security when 51% of the miners are Byzantine. In contrast, Avalanche provides a very strong guarantee of safety when the attacker is below a certain threshold, which can be parametrized by the system designer, and it provides graceful degradation when the attacker exceeds this threshold. It can uphold safety (but not liveness) guarantees even when the attacker exceeds 51%. It is the first permissionless system to provide such strong security guarantees.
• Decentralized Avalanche is designed to provide unprecedented decentralization. This implies a commitment to multiple client implementations and no centralized control of any kind. The ecosystem is designed to avoid divisions between classes of users with different interests. Crucially, there is no distinction between miners, developers, and users.
• Governable and Democratic $AVAX is a highly inclusive platform, which enables anyone to connect to its network and participate in validation and first-hand in governance. Any token holder can have a vote in selecting key financial parameters and in choosing how the system evolves.
• Interoperable and Flexible Avalanche is designed to be a universal and flexible infrastructure for a multitude of blockchains/assets, where the base $AVAX is used for security and as a unit of account for exchange. The system is intended to support, in a value-neutral fashion, many blockchains to be built on top. The platform is designed from the ground up to make it easy to port existing blockchains onto it, to import balances, to support multiple scripting languages and virtual machines, and to meaningfully support multiple deployment scenarios.

Ecosystems built on Avalanche

• Aave - open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol for earning interest on deposits and borrowing assests
• Curve - an exchange liquidity pool designed for extremely efficient stablecoin trading
• Markr - portfolio management and tracker tool for dApp users
• Metamask - a crytpo wallet and gateway to blockchain apps
• Sushiswap - a comprehensive, decentralized trading platform for the future of finance
• Topps NFTs - a diversified NFT marketplace with a multiplatform product portfolio
• Yield Yak - an easy to use tool to earn more yeild from defi farming
• Chainlink - a decentralized oracle network that enables smart contracts to securely access various data sources