The Future of Blockchain and The Economy
Why Arkius is Launching on Avalanche
As blockchain technology gains more mainstream attention, it can be hard to keep up with the newest technologies or with what differentiates one decentralized network from another. There are the big-hitters that have been in the space for a while, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and newer, innovative blockchains like Avalanche, Polkadot, Polygon, and Hedera HashGraph just to name a few. But rather than directly compare different blockchains, this article will focus on one of the most conceptually advanced and fastest growing decentralized networks.
You see, Ethereum, Polkadot, Polygon, and others all have positive features and serve different purposes, but there’s a new kid in town, and one that’s a serious contender to change the blockchain space — Avalanche. Avalanche is a project by blockchain startup Ava Labs. Ava’s co-founders include Emin Gün Sirer, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cornell, and Cornell alumni Ted Yin, M.S. (’19), and Kevin Sekniqi, M.S. (’18). In July 2020, Ava Labs raised $42 million in less than five hours during the first public sale of its native token, AVAX.¹ At the time of writing this article, the price of AVAX is around $52 USD/AVAX, up 171% in the last week and 369% in the past month.²
Avalanche is a dynamic blockchain — and a pretty efficient one at that. Instead of creating a blockchain that attempts to serve many different kinds of functions, all constrained by the advantages and limitations of that blockchain, Avalanche overcomes these constraints by being a blockchain of blockchains. Traditionally, blockchains contained all of their functionalities within one network. Avalanche divides functionality into three distinct parts, the X-Chain (exchanges assets), P-Chain (governs network through consensus protocol), and C-Chain (executes smart contracts).
“Avalanche is capable of processing higher throughput than Visa (4500 tps per subnet), sub second finality, low gas fees, offering unparalleled decentralisation by being able to scale the number of validators to millions with their revolutionary consensus protocol, as well as offering a highly customizable interoperable heterogeneous platform.”³
— CryptoSeq
TPS is the number of transactions per second that a platform can handle while still running securely and efficiently. For comparison, Visa does about 1700 transactions per second, Bitcoin has a throughput of 7 TPS, and at 25 TPS, Ethereum has a throughput of over 3x that of Bitcoin.⁴ Sub-second finality means transactions are verified within seconds. Other blockchains have lengthy transaction times, some taking up to minutes, even hours.
Avalanche’s most prominent feature, however, is subnet adaptability and the potential to serve organizations and communities of all kinds. Each subnet, or blockchain network, can be custom-made to fit the needs of an application or consensus protocol. That subnet is then deployed into a group of validators all working to verify and secure transactions across the network.
To summarize, users of Avalanche are not limited to the functions of a single blockchain, and validators are not limited to exclusively validating transactions on their subnet — a truly revolutionary way to execute and verify transactions on the blockchain.
Avalanche’s dynamic and extensive features, and the network’s potential for rapid expansion, are a major reason why Arkius is choosing to launch on Avalanche.
Arkius is a community first, values-centric movement that will revolutionize how we interact and transact with each other by using blockchain technology. Demanding a shift in our economic model is a big ask, and it requires a technology advanced enough to support everyone’s needs. Arkius will launch on Avalanche because of the multitude of ways Avalanche’s technology can empower and serve the Arkius community. These include the relatively low costs of deploying contracts, minting tokens, executing voting procedures, cheaper transactions fees, and other features, including the compatibility of subnets, the proof-of-stake protocol, and sub-second finality of transactions. By using Avalanche, Arkius will show our communities and our economy that our values demand to be recognized and respected.
At Arkius, we believe economic behavior, by both consumers and producers, has disregarded human values for far too long. We have lost sight of the impact of our economic decisions on our local community and communities around the world. But with the help of technology, we can fix that. We can use blockchain technology to create a marketplace fueled by human values rather than short term profits — and that’s only the beginning.
To learn more about Arkius, be sure to follow our Medium account for more articles.
Sources/Additional Reading on Avalanche:
- Blockchain Startup Raises A Quick $42 Million in First Sale
- Avalanche Price Chart
- A Quick Overview of Avalanche (AVAX) and Why You Should be Paying Attention
- No, Visa Doesn’t Handle 24,000 TPS and Neither Does Your Pet Blockchain
- Tutorial: Connecting to Avalanche with MetaMask
DISCLAIMER
This document mentions various third party services and products, including Avalanche, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Polygon, Hedera HashGraph, etc. (“Third Party Services”). The Third Party Services are provided by various parties, and may be subject to intellectual property rights (including trademark rights) of such parties. Please ensure that you review and understand the terms and conditions applicable to all the Third Party Services, and all risks associated with your use of such Third Party Services. You are solely responsible for using any Third Party Services and assume all risk and liability associated with such Third Party Services. You will indemnify, defend and hold Arkius harmless against any claims or losses made against us in connection with your use of the Third Party Services.
