Developer Documentation
Avalanche is an open-source platform for launching decentralized applications and enterprise blockchain deployments in one interoperable, highly scalable ecosystem. Avalanche gives you complete control on both the network and application layers–helping you build anything you can imagine.
A key difference between Avalanche and other decentralized networks is the consensus protocol. Over time, people have come to a false understanding that blockchains have to be slow and not scalable. The Avalanche protocol employs a novel approach to consensus to achieve its strong safety guarantees, quick finality, and high-throughput, without compromising decentralization.
The Avalanche (AVAX) token is the native token of the Avalanche platform and is used to secure the network through staking, transact peer-to-peer, pay for fees, and provide a basic unit of account between the multiple subnetworks created on the Avalanche platform. 1 nAVAX is equal to 0.000000001 AVAX.
Protocols in the Avalanche family operate through repeated sub-sampled voting. When a validator is determining whether a transaction should be accepted or rejected, it asks a small, random subset of validators whether they think the transaction should be accepted or rejected. If the queried validator thinks the transaction is invalid, has already rejected the transaction, or prefers a conflicting transaction, it replies that it thinks the transaction should be rejected. Otherwise, it replies that it thinks the transaction should be accepted.
If a sufficiently large portion (alpha ) of the validators sampled reply that they think the transaction should be accepted, the validator prefers to accept the transaction. That is, when it is queried about the transaction in the future, it will reply that it thinks the transaction should be accepted. Similarly, the validator will prefer to reject the transaction if a sufficiently large portion of the validators replies that they think the transaction should be rejected.
The validator repeats this sampling process until alpha of the validators queried reply the same way (accept or reject) for beta consecutive rounds.
In the common case when a transaction has no conflicts, finalization happens very quickly. When conflicts exist, honest validators quickly cluster around conflicting transactions, entering a positive feedback loop until all correct validators prefer that transaction. This leads to the acceptance of non-conflicting transactions and the rejection of conflicting transactions.
It is guaranteed (with high probability based on system parameters) that if any honest validator accepts or rejects a transaction, all honest validators will accept or reject that transaction.
Learn more technical components of the Avalanche consensus protocol by reading the whitepaper.
Snowman is a chain-optimized consensus protocol–high-throughput, totally-ordered, and great for smart contracts. Snowman is powered by the Avalanche consensus protocol. Both P-Chain and C-Chain implement the Snowman consensus protocol.
Uses a novel consensus protocol, developed by a team of Cornell computer scientists, and is able to permanently confirm transactions in under 1 second.
Capable of 4,500 transactions per second–an order of magnitude greater than existing blockchains.
Ensures stronger security guarantees well-above the 51% standard of other networks.
Easily create custom blockchains and decentralized apps that contain almost any arbitrary logic.
Uses energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus algorithm rather than proof-of-work.
Supports the creation of Solidity smart contracts and your favorite Ethereum tools like Remix, Metamask, Truffle, and more.
Create your own public or private blockchains.
Native support for easily creating and trading digital smart assets with complex, custom rulesets.
