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- Ava Labs has revealed a launch candidate for the Avalanche mainnet, known as Everest.
- Everest is a core feature-complete version of the network and will be the last testnet before the deployment of the mainnet.
After Ethereum‘s competitor, Avalanche, has raised 54 million dollars in two separate rounds of financing, the start of the mainnet seems to be only a matter of time. Yesterday, Ava Labs announced the launch of Avalanche’s final launch candidate, Everest, which is designed as the final testing ground before the main network is deployed. It will provide a fully functional version of the Avalanche network. Commenting on the launch of the mainnet candidate, the Ava Labs team said:
This marks a key step for our project and community as Everest has all of the core features of Avalanche. Please note that Everest does not reflect the state of the mainnet release that will follow soon after. This means Everest will not show token balances for the Avalanche Token (AVAX) sale participants, grant recipients, or testnet rewards.
The blockchain protocol, founded by Emin Gün Sirer of Cornell, also provides enhanced functionality for smart contracts between the standard Avalanche test chain and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). In July, it caused a stir in the crypto community when it received $42.5 million in just 4 hours of the second, public financing round. Ava Labs received the remaining 12 million in the first round of private funding, which included industry leaders such as Galaxy Digital, Bitmain and Initialized Capital.
A new era for decentralized finance?
The hype behind Avalanche is underpinned by its characteristics. As an EVM-compatible blockchain it can host applications from Ethereum’s DeFi. Avalanche has promised to offer greater scalability and transaction speed. Thus, it is emerging as an alternative that could offer the advantages of the Ethereum blockchain, without problems of congestion and high fees.
In addition, Avalanche will offer enhanced smart contract functionality on the Avalanche network and the Ethereum Virtual Machine. According to the official announcement, Avalanche has incorporated the following features for users to test:
Enhanced smart contract utility: Upgraded Avalanche Virtual Machine to support AVAX asset movement between all chains on the default subnet, including transfers between Avalanche’s default asset chain (X-Chain) and its Ethereum Virtual Machine implementation (C-Chain).
Non-fungible token (NFT) support: Full support for the creation, transacting, and wallet custody for NFTs.
Networking updates: Introduced adaptive timeouts to learn current network delays, enabling liveness during periods of larger delays, and enhanced DDoS protection to improve both network resilience and bootstrapping time.
Furthermore, the Everest version of Avalanche also includes Bech32 addresses, fees, UTXOs for the Platform Chain, network monitoring, end-to-end testing and a memo field for transactions. Ethereum’s developers will be able to leverage Avalanche’s features, as reported by Ava Labs, without having to learn additional code language or make changes to their workflow.
In that sense, Ava Labs revealed that Avalanche will be compatible with the key development tools of Ethereum that have allowed the creation and growth of decentralized finances on that network. This includes MetaMask, Web3.js, Remix, Truffle Suite, and the Embark platform.
According to Ava Labs COO Kevin Sekniqi, Avalanche marks the beginning of a new era of decentralized finance. Unlike the current state of the industry, Avalanche’s decentralized finance will be characterized by speed, efficient use of capital, and innovation in new products and services, Sekniqi said on the official announcement.