Recently, a handful of well-known projects have launched (or planned to launch) their own dedicated chains based on Avalanche. Why choose Avalanche over Ethereum?

The answer lies in Avalanche 9000, the largest network upgrade in history, implemented in December last year. This upgrade, which can be seen as Avalanche's version of "The Merge," completely restructured the validator economic model.

Under the ACP-77 proposal, the high fixed staking cost requirement for Avalanche validator nodes (2,000 AVAX) was replaced with a low-barrier, pay-as-you-go model. According to the assessment data from Effort Capital, an analyst at Blockworks Research, the reduced upfront costs make launching a sovereign Avalanche L1 chain highly attractive, with costs potentially lower than those of Celestia rollup solutions or Cosmos application chains.

Further Cost Savings

Teams creating Avalanche first-layer chains can leverage the infrastructure already built on the C-chain (Avalanche's liquidity hub). For example, Avalanche's first-layer network can provide users with the convenience of centralized exchange on-ramps through the C-chain, without having to pay a high percentage of tokens as direct integration fees.

"This is one of Avalanche's core value propositions," Ava Labs Chief Strategy Officer Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo told me in an interview. "From a go-to-market perspective, this can save development teams a significant amount of time and millions of dollars in integration costs."

For most standard chain infrastructure, including oracles, RPC services, indexers, block explorers, and NFT markets (all of which the C-chain already has), the estimated startup cost for an independent L1 to build from scratch could be as high as $13 million.

All of this relies on Avalanche's cross-chain communication protocol, which allows assets to be easily transferred between the C-chain and other chains, thus fully leveraging the aforementioned functional advantages.

The connection between the C-chain and Henesys (the dedicated chain for MapleStory) is now the most active two-way communication route in the international chat system, carrying tens of thousands of messages every day.

Value Capture Mechanism

Another major reason for launching an Avalanche first-layer network is the value capture mechanism.

Avalanche's first-layer blockchain can build a clear value accumulation channel for a project's native token by guiding its own validator set and issuing block rewards (or using the native token as gas fees). Ethereum's second-layer networks cannot utilize the same mechanism, so the value capture channels for project tokens are extremely limited or even non-existent, except for a few exceptions.

Finally, AvaCloud's HyperSDK also supports a high degree of L1 chain customization, which is in stark contrast to the constraints faced by L2 solutions based on rollup technology stacks, demonstrating a significant advantage.

AVAX Value Accumulation

Given the value accumulation issues faced by ETH and ATOM, it is necessary to study how AVAX achieves value accumulation.

Firstly, unlike the partial token burning mechanisms of Solana or Ethereum, all fees on Avalanche's C-chain are 100% burned. In 2025, the monthly burn value of AVAX tokens averages around $453,000.

Validator Nodes Continue to Stake AVAX

Validator nodes continue to stake AVAX to maintain the operation of the main network, with the current staked amount being approximately $8 billion (360.2 million AVAX).

Monthly Fees for Avalanche L1 Validator Nodes

Thirdly, according to the requirements of the ACP-77 proposal, each Avalanche L1 validator node must continuously pay a small amount of AVAX as a fee every month. Depending on the number of validator nodes, this fee fluctuates between several hundred to several thousand AVAX. Boccaccio, an analyst at Blockworks Research, has made detailed calculations for Gunzilla Chain (the calculation report is shown in the link diagram).

ICM Fees for C-chain Transactions

Whenever a transaction involves the C-chain, a small amount of indirectly generated ICM (Inter-Chain Messaging) fees are burned.

Avalanche's Development Path

Ultimately, Avalanche's business strategy is quite familiar: subsidizing long-term growth by reducing upfront investment.

Ethereum is also adopting the same strategy, willingly forgoing short-term execution fee revenue in hopes of gaining data availability fees in the long run. Celestia is also currently providing data availability services for free in pursuit of long-term growth.

"One of the common misconceptions about Avalanche is that it is not pursuing a high-speed chain," DeMeo told me, claiming that this statement is not true.

The ACP-125 and ACP-176 (Octane) upgrade plans have both reduced the minimum base fees on the C-chain and introduced a dynamic fee mechanism to optimize gas fees. These two improvements have led to an overall 96% reduction in C-chain fees from the beginning of 2025 to now.

DeMeo continued, "As part of the network's plan to implement 'Asynchronous Execution (ACP-194)' later this year, fees will continue to decrease. While Avalanche's value capture has not yet reached a significant scale, the development path is clear. With 66 active L1 chains in the ecosystem and more chains connecting, Avalanche is well-positioned to create its own network effect."

Recently, a handful of well-known projects have launched (or planned to launch) their own dedicated chains based on Avalanche. Why choose Avalanche over Ethereum?

The answer lies in Avalanche 9000, the largest network upgrade in history, implemented in December last year. This upgrade, which can be seen as Avalanche's version of "The Merge," completely restructured the validator economic model.

Under the ACP-77 proposal, the high fixed staking cost requirement for Avalanche validator nodes (2,000 AVAX) was replaced with a low-barrier, pay-as-you-go model. According to the assessment data from Effort Capital, an analyst at Blockworks Research, the reduced upfront costs make launching a sovereign Avalanche L1 chain highly attractive, with costs potentially lower than those of Celestia rollup solutions or Cosmos application chains.

Further Cost Savings

Teams creating Avalanche first-layer chains can leverage the infrastructure already built on the C-chain (Avalanche's liquidity hub). For example, Avalanche's first-layer network can provide users with the convenience of centralized exchange on-ramps through the C-chain, without having to pay a high percentage of tokens as direct integration fees.

"This is one of Avalanche's core value propositions," Ava Labs Chief Strategy Officer Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo told me in an interview. "From a go-to-market perspective, this can save development teams a significant amount of time and millions of dollars in integration costs."

For most standard chain infrastructure, including oracles, RPC services, indexers, block explorers, and NFT markets (all of which the C-chain already has), the estimated startup cost for an independent L1 to build from scratch could be as high as $13 million.

All of this relies on Avalanche's cross-chain communication protocol, which allows assets to be easily transferred between the C-chain and other chains, thus fully leveraging the aforementioned functional advantages.

The connection between the C-chain and Henesys (the dedicated chain for MapleStory) is now the most active two-way communication route in the international chat system, carrying tens of thousands of messages every day.

Value Capture Mechanism

Another major reason for launching an Avalanche first-layer network is the value capture mechanism.

Avalanche's first-layer blockchain can build a clear value accumulation channel for a project's native token by guiding its own validator set and issuing block rewards (or using the native token as gas fees). Ethereum's second-layer networks cannot utilize the same mechanism, so the value capture channels for project tokens are extremely limited or even non-existent, except for a few exceptions.

Finally, AvaCloud's HyperSDK also supports a high degree of L1 chain customization, which is in stark contrast to the constraints faced by L2 solutions based on rollup technology stacks, demonstrating a significant advantage.

AVAX Value Accumulation

Given the value accumulation issues faced by ETH and ATOM, it is necessary to study how AVAX achieves value accumulation.

Firstly, unlike the partial token burning mechanisms of Solana or Ethereum, all fees on Avalanche's C-chain are 100% burned. In 2025, the monthly burn value of AVAX tokens averages around $453,000.

Validator Nodes Continue to Stake AVAX

Validator nodes continue to stake AVAX to maintain the operation of the main network, with the current staked amount being approximately $8 billion (360.2 million AVAX).

Monthly Fees for Avalanche L1 Validator Nodes

Thirdly, according to the requirements of the ACP-77 proposal, each Avalanche L1 validator node must continuously pay a small amount of AVAX as a fee every month. Depending on the number of validator nodes, this fee fluctuates between several hundred to several thousand AVAX. Boccaccio, an analyst at Blockworks Research, has made detailed calculations for Gunzilla Chain (the calculation report is shown in the link diagram).

ICM Fees for C-chain Transactions

Whenever a transaction involves the C-chain, a small amount of indirectly generated ICM (Inter-Chain Messaging) fees are burned.

Avalanche's Development Path

Ultimately, Avalanche's business strategy is quite familiar: subsidizing long-term growth by reducing upfront investment.

Ethereum is also adopting the same strategy, willingly forgoing short-term execution fee revenue in hopes of gaining data availability fees in the long run. Celestia is also currently providing data availability services for free in pursuit of long-term growth.

"One of the common misconceptions about Avalanche is that it is not pursuing a high-speed chain," DeMeo told me, claiming that this statement is not true.

The ACP-125 and ACP-176 (Octane) upgrade plans have both reduced the minimum base fees on the C-chain and introduced a dynamic fee mechanism to optimize gas fees. These two improvements have led to an overall 96% reduction in C-chain fees from the beginning of 2025 to now.

DeMeo continued, "As part of the network's plan to implement 'Asynchronous Execution (ACP-194)' later this year, fees will continue to decrease. While Avalanche's value capture has not yet reached a significant scale, the development path is clear. With 66 active L1 chains in the ecosystem and more chains connecting, Avalanche is well-positioned to create its own network effect."