Avalanche - an open source blockchain. Avalanche is the fastest smart contract platform in the blockchain industry. Contents:

• Description of Avalanche
• How does Avalanche work?
• Blockchain benefits
• Blockchain token
• How to add Avalanche to Metamask?

Description of Avalanche

The simplest definition of Avalanche is that it is a smart contract platform for blockchain-enabled services that involves two parties to conduct business without an intermediary third party.

The project is mainly used for cryptocurrency transfers, other financial transactions with minimal costs. Other potential uses are for decentralized finance (DeFi), nearly all financial and asset-based assets, and digital collectibles. Avalanche was founded by Ava Labs, founded by Emin Gun Sirer, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, at the time of its launch in 2018. The Ava Labs team is made up of experts in computer science, economics, finance and law. Emin Gün Sirer, Kevin Secnicki and Maofan "Ted" Ying founded the company in 2018. The Avalanche mainnet was launched in September 2020 after raising $60 million from a token sale. Avalanche consists of a main network (Primary Network) and an unlimited number of subnets (Subnet). In turn, the main network includes three blockchains:

1. Platform Chain (P-Chain) stores metadata, coordinates validators and keeps track of subnets;
2. Contract Chain (C-Chain) allows you to create Ethereum-compatible smart contracts;
3. Exchange Chain (X-Chain) provides tools for exchanging data across subnets, as well as creating fungible tokens and NFTs.

Avalanche subnets are similar to the L2 solutions for Ethereum and parachains in Polkadot, but with completely isolated blockchain states.

How does Avalanche work?

The Avalanche Hub blog explains the process of confirming or rejecting transactions, using the example of the collective choice of yellow or blue by network nodes. The nodes choose a color, if the node's decision differs from the majority position, it changes it. The node chooses yellow and sends requests to five random nodes. The response time is limited. This allows you to weed out nodes that create a large delay. The algorithm determines the nodes randomly, however, the chance to participate in transaction verification increases with the increase in the number of Avalanche tokens in staking.

Blockchain benefits

Many blockchain enthusiasts recognize Avalanche as similar to Ethereum in the same way that it is an open source blockchain platform that allows anyone to write and deploy smart contracts and build decentralized applications. However, there is a key difference that makes Avalanche special:

Blockchain token

The native token, used on the Avalanche platform, uses the ticker symbol AVAX. It is the main unit of the network, serving as a peer-to-peer payment currency, as well as:

• means for protecting the network;
• deploying new subnets;
• payment of commissions;
• creation and exchange of assets;
• protocol management and incentives for validators.

AVAX was created with a limited supply of 720 million tokens, 360 million of which were issued with the mainnet genesis block. The remaining 360 million tokens are being minted in accordance with the Avalanche Whitepaper. In the first year, staking rewards aim to target the minting percentage of new AVAX tokens at 7-12%. While the overall supply of AVAX cannot be changed, token holders may change the level of allocation of new tokens to adapt to changing economic conditions.

How to add Avalanche to Metamask?

To add Avalanche to MetaMask, you need to go to the wallet settings, select the Networks item in the menu, click the Add network button and fill in the fields.

• The network name — Avalanche Network;
• New RPC URL — https://api.avax.network/ext/bc/C/rpc;
• Chain ID — 43114;
• The currency symbol — AVAX;
• The block explorer URL — https://snowtrace.io/.

Then click the “Save” button. The second way - to use the Chainlist service. Click the “Connect Wallet” button, enter "Avalanche Mainnet" in the search bar and approve the addition of the network in the MetaMask window.