Avalanche is a blockchain network, designed to provide an open-source platform and a layer 1 protocol for launching DeFi (Decentralized Finance) applications and enterprise blockchain solutions. In July 2020, Avalanche raised $42.5 million in a public token sale.^[1] The open-source platform officially launched September 21, 2020, as the first smart contract platform that can confirm transactions in under one second. It also supports all of the Ethereum development toolkit, and allows millions of independent validators to participate as block producers.^[10].

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. ^[1]

While Avalanche aims to be much faster than Ethereum it supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

This means that it will support tools like "Metamask and My Ether Wallet. This also makes it eäsier for dapps and projects built on Ethereum to move on to Avalanche. ^[1]

Avalanche was built by Ava Labs, an open-source platform for decentralized finance 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.^[1]

In June 2020, Avalanche raised $12 million after attracting investment in a private token sale.

Investors in the project including Galaxy Digital, Bitmain Technologies Limited, Initialized Capital, NGC Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, and many more. The token sale followed the launch of Avalanche's Denali Testnet, which had more than 1,000 full block producing nodes actively staking and participating in the consensus protocol.^[2]

In July 2020, Avalanche raised $42.5 million in a public token sale.

The sale opened at 10 am ET on July 15.

It took four and a half hours for Avalanche 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.^[1] Originally, the public sale was expected to run for at least two weeks.

The token sale involved participants from 100 countries in line with previously announced rules.

According to the firm, the sale even featured participation from Ethereum's Genesis block - the first or origin block of a private network on the Ethereum blockchain.^[4] In addition, Avalanche integrated with DirectAuth by Torus, in order to allow users to perform one-click Google logins to the Avalanche wallet.^[3]

On September 21, the Avalanche open-source Platform was officially launched.

The launch includes the first smart contracts that confirm transactions in under a second, supports 'the entirety of the Ethereum development toolkit', and allows millions of independent validators to take part as full block producers.^[10]

On September 16, 2020, AVA Labs announced it was ready to officially launch the Avalanche on September 21, 2020.

This comes after sixteen months of preparation.

^[9]

AVA Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer described the importance of the launch in a blog post:

On the day of the launch, Gun Sirer published 'A Dive Into Avalanche' on CoinMarketCap. The article explains what the purpose and function of Avalanche is.^[10]

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 mainnet, which the company aims to push live by the end of August 2020.^[1]