Avalanche9000 Upgrade and Its Impacts
Avalanche is gearing up for a major upgrade—its most substantial since launching the mainnet—which brings an exciting $40 million in rewards for the community. On November 25, Avalanche introduced the Avalanche9000 upgrade on the Fuji testnet, with plans to roll it out on the mainnet soon. This upgrade aims to reduce deployment costs by an astonishing 99.9%, facilitate communication between different blockchains, and provide a generous distribution of retroactive rewards to developers. Drawing from various technological improvements from the earlier Etna Upgrade along with community-driven proposals ACP-77 and ACP-125, this upgrade comes with some significant changes. One notable alteration is the renaming of Avalanche’s subnets; they will now be called layer-1s. While the terminology changes, Avalanche assures users that the underlying operational mechanisms of these networks will remain the same. This means they can still scale effectively without relying heavily on unique blockchains.Changes in Validator Roles
The layer-1 networks will offer flexibility, functioning as either permissioned or permissionless entities and allowing for different levels of control over validator involvement and reward distributions. A shift in validator roles is also part of the upgrade. Subnet validators, now known as L1-only-validators, will no longer need to stake 2,000 Avalanche (AVAX) tokens or remain synchronized with the Avalanche Primary Network. Instead, they will incur a continuous fee adjusted according to the number of validators. This fee, charged by the second, will lower operational costs significantly for those involved. Management of validators is transitioning, too. With the Etna upgrade, the Avalanche network is shifting responsibility from the previously centralized Avalanche P-Chain to individual layer-1 networks, which will operate under a ValidatorManager smart contract. This move is expected to enhance independence and decentralization, allowing L1 networks to establish their own governance structures and incentive models. For subnets looking to eliminate the staking requirement for validators, governance must shift from the P-Chain Owner Key to the ValidatorManager smart contract.Future Prospects for Avalanche
Avalanche has already reported that more than 500 layer-1 networks are under development across both testnet and mainnet. These networks encompass various applications, including gaming platforms, payment solutions, and institutional research initiatives. Overall, this upgrade is poised to boost interoperability and reduce the barriers that developers typically face. Current statistics from DefiLlama indicate that Avalanche’s total value locked stands at approximately $1.4 billion. This is a notable figure, representing nearly 10% of the peak value reached in November 2021, which was a staggering $11.1 billion. “`htmlSource: Cointelegraph.com
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