AVAX rises 10% after Avalanche Foundation raises $250M in preparation for blockchain upgrade

The Avalanche Foundation announced raising $250 million through a private token sale to support its blockchain platform, according to a Dec. 12 statement.

The funding round had around 40 participants, including leading firms such as Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, and ParaFi Capital.

The announcement spurred a 10% surge in Avalanche’s AVAX token, pushing its price to $52. This continues a bullish trend, with the token gaining 52% over the past month.

Avalanche9000 upgrade

The Avalanche9000 upgrade, set for Dec. 16, aims to revolutionize blockchain costs and scalability. It will cut Layer-1 deployment costs on Avalanche by 99.9% and lower transaction fees on its C-Chain by 25 times.

The upgrade supports Avalanche’s multi-chain vision, enabling horizontal scalability across various industries such as gaming, payments, loyalty programs, and real-world asset tokenization.

Over 500 Layer-1 chains are in development, and institutional giants like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are leveraging Avalanche for their tokenized funds.

Haseeb Qureshi, Managing Partner at Dragonfly, called the upgrade a transformative moment for blockchain development. He stated:

“Avalanche’s upcoming Avalanche9000 upgrade represents a pivotal step toward advancing the decentralized finance ecosystem, and we believe Avalanche is uniquely positioned to capture the growing momentum in Web3 and blockchain scalability.”

In preparation, the Avalanche9000 testnet introduced Retro9000, which includes a $40 million retroactive grant program. This initiative offers $2 million in referral rewards to developers building on the platform.

Kevin Sekniqi, co-founder of Ava Labs, highlighted the network’s potential to outpace Ethereum, Solana, and other chains combined in transaction volume, emphasizing Avalanche’s unique multi-chain model.

He stated:

“There is no question in my mind that Avalanche network will process more transactions than Ethereum/L2s + Solana + other chains combined in the near future. There’s no Avalanche ‘chain.’ It’s a network of many interoperable chains. In aggregate there’s going to be a lot of activity.”

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