Layer 1 Blockchain Project Avalanche Raises $250M to Support Avalanche9000 Upgrade

The investment will support the Avalanche9000 upgrade, which launched on testnet in November with over $40 million in retroactive rewards for developers

Layer 1 blockchain protocol Avalanche has announced raising $250 million in a locked token sale to support its Avalanche9000 upgrade.

The sale was led by Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly and ParaFi Capital, with participation from SkyBridge, SCB Limited, Hivemind, Big Brain Holdings, Hypersphere, Lvna Capital, Republic Capital, Morgan Creek Digital, FinTech Collective, CMCC Global, Superscrypt, Cadenza, Chorus One and Tané Labs, among others.

The tokens sold in the raise have certain vesting or lock-up periods, according to the announcement on Thursday.

Avalanche co-founder Emin Gün Sirer told Forbes that the primary goal was to get alignment and incentivize the right kinds of partners to build with. Gün Sirer also estimates that the Avalanche Foundation holds around $3 billion in AVAX tokens.

Previously, Avalanche raised $230 million in a similar token sale led by Polychain in 2021.

The investment will support the Avalanche9000 upgrade, which launched on testnet in November with over $40 million in retroactive rewards for developers building on the network.

According to a blog post on Thursday, Avalanche9000 is designed to drive scalable, purpose-built Layer 1s, reducing blockchain deployment costs by 99.9% and transaction costs by 25 times.

“Our support of Avalanche, and the growth and scalability of blockchain protocols, is essential to the future of this industry,” said Galaxy Global Head of Trading Jason Urban.

“At Galaxy, we are providing Avalanche with the strategic resources and services needed to foster institutional participation and long-term growth, ensuring they can lead the next wave of blockchain adoption with Avalanche9000.”

The project claims that more than 500 Layer 1 chains are already in development across sectors like tokenization of real-world assets, loyalty, gaming, payments and institutional programs, such as DeFi Kingdoms, Dexalot, Off The Grid and Lamina1.

“Avalanche is uniquely positioned to be a driving force in the evolution of onchain institutional finance,” said ParaFi Capital founder Ben Forman.

“Architectural advantages like fast transaction finality and high throughput, combined with customizable virtual machines, make it an ideal platform for securely and compliantly issuing and managing tokenized assets. This is why ParaFi used the Securitize platform to tokenize a portion of our latest venture fund on Avalanche.”

The Avalanche9000 mainnet upgrade is set to roll out on Dec. 16, which is designed to enhance scalability, streamline development and equip developers with better tools for building decentralized applications, the team said.

Earlier on Thursday, Uplink became the first decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) platform to launch on Avalanche.

The platform aims to decentralize internet connectivity by encouraging users to share existing networks and deploy new infrastructure in underserved areas.