Avalanche has launched the “Avalanche9,000” testnet, a major update designed to make Layer 1 (L1) blockchain development cheaper and more accessible.
The announcement by the Avalanche Foundation includes plans to distribute $40 million in retroactive grants to developers, along with $2 million earmarked for referrals to help drive network adoption.
The testnet went live today, marking a significant step toward the upgrade’s eventual deployment on Avalanche’s mainnet, known as C-Chain, scheduled for 2025.
“This latest update focuses on making every component in the Avalanche technology stack cheaper,” said Stephen Buttolph, Chief Protocol Architect at Ava Labs. “From reducing C-Chain fees to removing capital requirements for L1 validators, every user of Avalanche should experience lower costs.”
The Avalanche9,000 initiative includes the Etna Upgrade, which brings a number of improvements such as rule changes regarding validators and the rebranding of Avalanche subnets as “Avalanche L1s.”
Two critical components of Avalanche9,000, the ACP-77 and ACP-125, focus on reducing costs and increasing interoperability:
- ACP-77 introduces a new validator governance framework that enables the creation of low-cost, natively interoperable blockchains.
- ACP-125 will reduce the base transaction fees on C-Chain from 25 nAVAX to 1 nAVAX.
With 1 nAVAX equal to one billionth of an AVAX token (AVAX is currently worth $42), the cost reductions are individually small, but significant when added up over time. The 96% reduction in fees is expected to make deploying and maintaining applications on Avalanche more cost-effective for developers.
*This is not investment advice.
