Avalanche, a blockchainblockchain network that claims to be hundreds of times faster than EthereumEthereum, announced today that it has raised $42.5 million in a public tokentoken sale.
The sale opened at 10am ET on July 15. It took just four and a half hours for the latest “Ethereum killer” to sell all 72 million of its AVAX tokens available for purchase. This brings the total amount of funding for the network to $60 million. (And for those wondering, the sale excluded US residents, lest it raise the ire of the SEC.)
ETH killer 2018: Raised $4b (disputed) ETH killer 2019: Raised $126m (ongoing?) ETH killer 2020: Raised $54m...?
AVAX tokens are the network’s governance tokens; holders can use them to vote on the future of the network. The tokens will be distributed to investors upon the launch of Avalanche’s mainnetmainnet, which the company aims to push live by the end of August.
What is Avalanche?
Avalanche is a blockchain network that promises high transaction speeds (“Visa-level throughput”). Ethereum supports roughly 15 transactions per second; Avalanche promises to support over 4,500 transactions per second.
Avalanche was built by Ava labs, an open-source platform for DeFi applications. Both were founded by Emin Gün Sirer, a Cornell University computer science professor who co-directs the University’s Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts.
As @WilsonWithiam noted, the platform war narrative is poised for a comeback, despite Ethereum's current dominance and stranglehold on DeFi
Even though Avalanche is, it claims, far faster than Ethereum, it still supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine, meaning that it supports tools like MetaMask and My Ether Wallet.
That makes it suitable for decentralized financedecentralized finance (DeFi), the $3 billion dollar industry that comprises such products as non-custodial loans, savings accounts and decentralized stablecoins.
All of the top DeFiDeFi protocols—Maker, Compound and Aave—are based on Ethereum. If Avalanche supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine, this means that these apps could easily jump ship.
Ethereum is getting dangerously close to hitting its technical limits, as users of the blockchain network climb a mountain that has been scaled just once before.
Decentralized finance and its associated tokens are on fire, and the number of transactions on the Ethereum network is drawing close to marking a new all-time high. The transactions record was set early on in 2018 at the height of the ICOcraze, before falling to an average of less than half the peak for the next two years, before steady...
They might be motivated to do so because Ethereum is fit to burst; for the past few months, over 90% of its network is in use.
And DeFi is growing very quickly—around two weeks ago, the now $3 billion industry was a still a $2billion dollar industry—and it needs space to grow. What's more, Ethereum 2.0, which promises to speed up the network, has been beset by countless delays.
Among other competitors are Algorand, Polkadot and DFINITY, which is slated to go live this year. Those have far more money behind them.
Pre-launch vs current network valuations for Ethereum competitors. Source: Messari
Algorand is worth over $2 billion, according to Messari, a crypto analytics firm. Messari valued Polkadot at $1.2 billion. DFINITY has raised $166.9 million in four rounds, according to Crunchbase; much of it from Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
Coinbase Global Inc. will launch US Perpetual-Style Futures on July 21, becoming one of the first exchanges to offer regulated perpetual futures contracts in the U.S.—a market that offshore platforms have dominated despite representing upwards of 90% of global crypto trading activity.
The crypto exchange announced Thursday it will debut nano Bitcoin (0.01 BTC) and nano Ethereum (0.10 ETH) perpetual-style futures contracts, designed to closely track spot prices while offering leverage and remain...
Digital asset platform Bakkt Holdings has notified the U.S. SEC of its plans to sell up to $1 billion in securities to provide fresh capital for a possible expansion of its corporate treasury to include Bitcoin.
Bakkt's S-3 filing on Thursday creates a $1 billion pool of potential securities, including common stock, preferred stock, debt securities, warrants, and bundled stock units, which could be tapped whenever market conditions become favorable.
Backed by Intercontinental Exchange, the platf...
Bitcoin treasury firm Metaplanet has amassed an additional 1,234 Bitcoin worth nearly $132 million, based on the current price, marking its third-largest BTC buy to date, according to a disclosure released by the firm on Thursday.
The Japan-based firm purchased the Bitcoins for 15,617,281 yen per token, or around $108,129 at the current conversation rate, the filing shows. The purchase date remains unclear.
This latest acquisition brings Metaplanet’s Bitcoin holdings to 12,345 BTC, worth more th...