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Michael Kaplan
Foreign.
Bryce
Everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Crypto 101 podcast. I'm your host, Bryce. Very excited today. We got a great guest for you as always, joined by my Lovely co host, Mr. Brendan Veeman. Brendan, how are you doing today, Bryce?
Brendan Veeman
I am doing fantastic. We are ending the year on a bang here with perhaps one of the, one of the biggest upgrades that we've talked about this year outside of, you know, maybe the bitcoin. Having that was a pretty big one, but this, when it comes to the altcoin market is massive. So we're ending the year on a big note. We got one of the biggest names here and man, we got a lot to talk about. Yeah.
Bryce
We are joined by Michael Kaplan, who's an engineer working on the platform over at Avalanche and particularly going to be introducing us to Avalanche 9000, which is the new launch that they've got going on. So. So Michael, thanks for joining us and we're really excited to dive into things here today.
Michael Kaplan
Yeah, thanks for having me. Super excited to talk about it. I was just saying it's great timing with avalanche 9000 hitting mainnet yesterday. So, excited to dive in?
Bryce
Yeah, no, I, I couldn't be more pleased to have you. You know, full disclosure, we. We've got Avax. You know, we're holders, we're excited about what's going on over there. And why don't you just catch us up real quick before we dive into things going on at Avalanche. Just, you know, let's get our audience acquainted with you personally. Tell us a little bit about what you were doing before crypto and now what are you involved in and what's your role?
Michael Kaplan
Yeah, absolutely. So I've been at Ava Labs for a little over five years now and was originally made aware of the company because our founder, Goon, was one of my professors at Cornell. So he was really in the right place at the right time to kind of be at the forefront of some of the research that he was working on back in 2018. And that was how I kind of got my start at OPA Labs. He was looking to bring some people that he had already worked with at Cornell in to help build out the vision which originally started around the idea of this novel consensus algorithm that could be leveraged to help create super high throughput, low latency chains and scale those to many thousands of active validators. And since delivering on that thesis back in 2020 when Mainnet launched, we've really tried to focus on each part of the blockchain tech stack and Provide innovation up and down it. So whether you're talking about databases and storage or networking, obviously consensus virtual machines, execution, interoperability, got a lot going on at many different parts of the blockchain tech stack, and we're trying to push them all forward. So throughout my five years here have been. Have worn many different hats. Work on the Avalanche bridges connecting Ethereum and Bitcoin to the Avalanche C chain, and also heavily focused on interchain messaging within Avalanche for native communication between any two Avalanche L1s. We're super excited about the Aetna upgrade in Avalanche 9000 going live on mainnet yesterday. Think that will be a big unblocker for new applications to be built on top of Interchange Messaging, icm, but also more experimentation in the creation of new blockchains using new virtual machines or with unique applications built on top of them. So, yeah, we think it's a big unlock for a lot of builders out there looking to get started, and we hope it's just the beginning.
Brendan Veeman
Wow.
Michael Kaplan
Yeah.
Brendan Veeman
Yeah.
Bryce
Lot to unpack there, Brendan.
Brendan Veeman
There is, and that's why we got all the time in the world to do it. You know, one of the things that sparked my attention there was kind of just talking about the next generation of blockchain. It's something that me and Bryce love bringing up because it's ever growing, it's ever changing. And, you know, we see projects like yourself, like, like Avalanche that is not content with where they are at. They're saying, hey, we can do bigger things, we can do better things, we can become more interoper, more scalable, more efficient. You know, the list goes on. And that's really where kind of your specialty comes in from the engineering side is saying, hey, let's break this down. And so, you know, I guess before we get into the, into the specifics of Avax 9000 and what kind of that upgrade entails, you know, what does. Or I guess how does the current state of, of just increasing blockchain tech? Like, what does that next era look like? Like, how are we working on the current state of blockchain? And like, you know, what can we see down the road? Because, you know, most of us and most of the listeners, we aren't engineers, like, we don't know what goes into that and what that could look like. But I think that, you know, you have an opportunity here to give not only myself, but a lot of the listeners some kind of keen insight into, like, what goes on behind the scenes and like, maybe like, what interests you, because it's easy for someone like myself to be like, oh, you know, they said the word rwa, they said tokenization, they said defi, I'm interested now. And we can get caught up in like these niches and these other things. But, you know, would you say that, you know, from an engineering perspective that you guys maybe see things a little bit different and, you know, maybe there's something that sticks out to you and that you are really looking forward to?
Michael Kaplan
Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. So I think a core piece, maybe if I can take a step back, a core piece of the foundation of the design of the Avalanche network architecture is that no matter how fast a single chain can go, which we want to push to be very fast, we will always need a multi chain network. One, because there's some theoretic limit, no matter how fast we make single chain and at a global scale, hopefully we will blow past whatever that limit is and need to be able to scale horizontally. But two, because many different projects in the different verticals that you just named have a lot of their own considerations and their own product requirements or regulatory requirements. And the chains and technologies that they use should be able to be tailored to their specific use cases. And so that's really a core piece of the technology that we're trying to, or how we're trying to develop this technology at Avalanche to allow all of these use cases to be developed on top of Avalanche and seamlessly interoperate with all the other chains in the network. And so when you talk about what am I excited to work on or how do I see it progressing, I think there needs to be some level of union between the efforts going on kind of at the lower level of the tech stack of how can we make this database more optimized and how can we make sure that the validators of this network are able to keep up with the transaction load, or how are we able to reach the decentralization goals that we want to have for this network, Those all need to be translated into what are people actually trying to build using that. And the unique thing about Avalanche, I think, is how customizable it is so that you can apply your different requirements or performance optimizations on your own L1 network and make sure it's hyper tailored to your specific use case, no matter what type of project that you are, and within that still be connected to the larger Avalanche network. And yeah, that's really kind of a big enabler of exploration of a lot of different pieces of the technology, whether that be ZK or whether that be new virtual machines and how those can plug and play with each other is experimentation that we hope to see happen on avalanche.
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Brendan Veeman
Yeah, and I definitely wanna talk about that, because when it comes to the customizability and the scalability and the interoperability, you know, that's a big part of this upgrade. But, you know, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself yet. But if we kind of reel it back into the core of of Avax 9000, you know, most of our listeners have heard us talk about Avalanche, either on the podcast or in our communities or somewhere before. You know, they probably either heard us talk about you guys or they're already familiar. But really, just a few weeks ago, you know, the team announced this Avax 9000 upgrade, and I saw that it was labeled, quote, unquote, the largest network upgrade that Avalanche has undergone since the Mainnet launch, which is, you know, a big feat. It's a big deal. So can you just walk us through what this upgrade is at a high level?
Michael Kaplan
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say the key piece, there's really two key pieces of the Aetna upgrade, aka Avalanche9001, is that it aims to make it as streamlined and easy and cost effective as possible for you to launch your own L1 blockchain within Avalanche. So from the very beginning we've had Avalanche subnets, which were sub networks within the greater Avalanche network that are able to run their own chains and have their own requirements. But there were some obstacles for projects to launch their own subnets, such as needing to provide 2000 AVOCs for every subnet validator that has to also validate the primary network. That requirement goes away with the Avalanche 9000 upgrade so that you can launch your own chain which manages its own validator set Using whatever mechanism you would like, whether that's proof of stake or proof of authority or proof of work even you can mix and match what not have your own fully sovereign network and still connect it to the wider worlds of Avalanche. And making that as streamlined and cost efficient as possible is something that we're viewed as a key foundational piece to seeing the type of network growth that we would really like to see and are actively working on going forward. The other half of it I think was improvements to the Avalanche C chain, which is the most used chain I think in Avalanche today at least. It's kind of the common entry point for users within Avalanche because it's EVM compatible whatnot. And so it reduced fees by changing the dynamic fee requirements on the C chain, which I think people are also very pleased about, is decreased 96% yesterday. So much cheaper swaps. I did a swap of Avox to USDC to test it out as soon as the upgrade went live and it was one cent. So that was really nice to see.
Bryce
How do you guys see, you know, Avalanche being most used? I've seen some people use it for defi. I've seen some people use it for gaming. Like kind of what are the internal stats that you guys are looking at and how does that kind of break down?
Michael Kaplan
Yeah, I think one of the unique aspects of how or unique artifacts of how customizable the network and stack technology stack is is that it can be applied in so many different ways. So I don't actually have great visibility into like the number of L1 chains in each of these different verticals that you mentioned before. But it's very exciting to see that multiple of these different verticals are gaining a lot of traction whether that be defi. There's a project called Dexalot which is an on chain club central limit order book that operates as an avalanche L1 there was off the grid and gaming might have seen recently got a lot of traction for their for off the grid launching as an avalanche L1 also across all of these different verticals, real world assets, we can go on and on. I'm honestly not as familiar as maybe I should be with all of the projects launching in the ecosystem, but that's a great problem to have. Obviously there's. I think it's frequently the case with many of these projects that the blockchain technology isn't actually the core aspect of it. People playing off the grid hopefully don't really care what blockchain is underneath it. They just want it to work and work well. And work fast and work inexpensively. So we're trying to make that the case in many different verticals. And we see that as the route forward towards mainstream adoption is when you don't even need to know that you're interacting with Avalanche behind the scenes. Yeah.
Bryce
What would you say of all the verticals would probably get the biggest boost from Avalanche 9000? Like when you guys are engineering with this in mind, you know, you're probably thinking, you know, you're building a solution for a certain subset of problems like what what vertical maybe gets the biggest boost from this?
Michael Kaplan
You know, as much as it's a cop out answer, I think it's really all of them because it's not tied to any specific application. It's all about making it as easy as possible to launch your own L1 chain. And whatever that chain is should be tailored to your given use case, no matter what vertical you're in. But the core fundamentals of not needing to validate the primary network and post 2000 of Ox's stake for every validator and getting to define how you, how your chain manages its own validator set and you know, how staking works within your own chain, those are very much agnostic to what applications are built on top of that chain. And yeah, I think that's why one of the reasons we're so excited about it facilitating or accelerating growth in the development of all those different verticals because it applies really broadly across the board. I know various folks within our organization are focused on driving adoption within specific verticals and have great success in doing so. In terms of off the grid and deep in, I think uplink, I saw an announcement. Nice was L1 that also recently launched a lot of real world assets being brought on chain. But like I said, it's really the underlying technology is agnostic to whatever application is being built on top of it. And the thinking is that now the experts in those fields or those verticals should be able to apply any application logic and deploy it on their own blockchain on Avalanche much more easily, no matter what it is.
Brendan Veeman
One of the things that caught my attention earlier was when you were talking about how kind of post this upgrade Avax is going to have the ability to launch L1s really simply very easily. So that people who probably want more customizable complex projects, you know, they can come to Avax as a source to do that. And almost, you know what it reminded me of at least initially and correct me if I'm wrong here, but kind of like what Pump fun has done for meme coins where anyone can come in and launch, like, a pretty complicated meme coin. You know, they can put in all the specifications of what they want and then, boom, it's out. That kind of reminds me of this, but in a much more complex way for, like, projects who need that customizable factors and they need a lot more complexities. That's kind of what I view this as, is revolutionizing the way that L1s and projects can be formed. Is that like. Is that comparable? Am I making, like, a fair assumption there?
Michael Kaplan
Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think a few more examples of that could be some regulated entity wanting to launch their own L1 and having a lot of specific requirements for who's allowed to run validators or who's allowed to send transactions or deploy contracts or interact in any specific way because of their jurisdiction. And yeah, the jurisdiction that they operate within them being able to do that very easily on top of Avalanche or on the flip side, kind of a more technical route of I want to launch some very high performance, decentralized exchange on a blockchain. If you're going to do that, you might not want to use the EVM as commonly done across the board, because you don't need the generic code execution that the EVM provides. You just want to run your one application on the chain. And being able to embed your exchange logic in the virtual machine layer allows it to have far, far higher throughput and performance gains because you avoid the complexities of the generality of the evm. So I think it's totally a fair comparison to make, and we hope to continue to decrease those barriers to entry going forward.
Brendan Veeman
Yeah, I mean, when it comes to launching these or helping get these new L1s launched, how does Avax benefit from that? Because my initial thought is if you all are doing this, surely there has to be a way to capitalize on that. But in the same way that that maybe shouldn't be done for free, how do you also prevent that from maybe slowing down or kind of bogging down Avax? Because, say, this is wildly successful, could that eventually become a hindrance? Or is Avax now kind of at the point now where, you know, that's not even something that you all are thinking about.
Michael Kaplan
It's always something we're thinking about. Yeah, definitely on our minds. You know, whatever the. I think I said earlier, whatever the limits are, we're trying to push them. Yeah. As far as what does this mean for adoption? So when you launch your L1 chain, each validator and please feel free to interrupt me if I'm going too technical or want me to explain further. In any area, when you launch your own L1 chain, when you register a validator on that chain, you will now pay a continuous fee in Avox on the P chain where all validators are registered in order for the Avalanche primary network to maintain and track your validator of your specific chain. And that allows for the interoperability of the networks for them to verify messages to and from one another. And that's why that's the utility you get from registering your validators on the P chain. But all other transactions and load on those networks are fully isolated to the networks themselves, the L1 themselves. So when we're talking about number of users, that's really horizontally scalable. You might have a chain that's proof of stake and has good staking dynamics or whatnot, good tokenomics, and attracts a lot of permissionless validators. And all of those validators will be paying a VOX to be registered on the P chain. And that's a continuous fee mechanism. But then again, you might have chains with a smaller set, say 50 to 100 validators of permissioned nodes. And those chains are doing thousands and thousands of transactions per second. That's great. It doesn't congest the other L1s within avalanche or the Avalanche primary network.
Bryce
I got to know. This should be the first question I asked, but why 9,000? What's the naming? What went on behind the scenes there?
Michael Kaplan
You know, I should have a better answer to this. I got on the marketing team and I like it. I know it's a reference to something. And I. One point. I asked this question and was told what the answer to it was.
Bryce
It could be. Was it like, has anything to do with the Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan? Like, he's above 9,000.
Michael Kaplan
I think it is. Yeah, that sounds very familiar. That could be in that realm. And I was like, oh, I chuckled at it and went in one ear and out the other.
Bryce
Yeah, I remember when bitcoin was breaking above 9, 000 back in, you know, 2021 or whatever. The memes all about, you know, people going Super Saiyan mode above 9, 000 and then it would break down to below 9, 000 and then he loses his Super Saiyan and all that stuff. But no, I asked because you guys also have something that you guys are referring to as Retro9,000, which is Retro, I think $40 million. Correct me if I'm wrong, $40 million of retroactive rewards to incentivize developers to come on over to the platform. So tell us a little bit about that.
Michael Kaplan
Yeah, so retro 9000 is really meant to incentivize builders across all these verticals to kind of be the first adopters of all of the new features added in Avalanche 9000 and experiment with them on Testnet, build out the innovative products and projects that can now be built out with this, these unlocks and not only launch on testnet, but then go ahead and promote those applications and those projects to mainnet and as you do not only benefit from being one of the first adopters, but also get to partake in this retroactive grant program. $40 million. I think there's already been a great number of registrations and participants in IT across many different both technology and application verticals. I know there's a few projects on the C chain looking to participate in it and launching their own L1s. I think stars arena was one of those. The Social FI application. There's a few looking at interesting new staking dynamics like you can maybe you are required to hold a specific type of NFT in order to become a validator of a specific chain or a hybrid proof of authority, proof of stake model, or all these types of experimentation that are now unlocked. We want people to adopt and play around with as quickly as possible. And that's really the motivation behind Avalanche 9000. And we are super excited about all of the development already underway for it and excited to see where it goes from here.
Bryce
Awesome. Well, you know, before we move on, is there anything else about Avalanche 9000 that we we failed to ask or you failed to mention before we get to some other questions just about the industry in general and kind of where you see things developing towards nothing that.
Michael Kaplan
Comes to top of mind. I think I saw a few. Some shameless plugs. I saw a few tweets of like, oh, swaps on the C chain are now cheaper than swaps on many L2s. Or the fee reduction on the C chain is for the. Just as some context here, there's a dynamic fee mechanism for the C chain which is like I said, many people's entry point into Avalanche. And it works very similar to how it does on other EVM chains like Ethereum. Ethereum for instance. And when it was first implemented there were guardrails on it to make sure that fees didn't go too low and present dos vulnerabilities for the chain. You could spam transactions for very cheap. That could be a potential security issue for the network as a whole. But that dynamic fee mechanism has been super battle tested over the course of a couple years now, mainly through inscriptions, I think was a great example of it. And the fees reacted exactly as they should under increased network load. So we kind of removed. It was a community proposal which was very well received. I think removing the guardrails for the minimum that the fee is able to go to. So in times like right now, the fee rate is much lower. And a 96% reduction right away after the network activated was something that was really cool to see. I think it will hopefully unblock and attract many more very casual users who want to get into the space but don't want to spend transaction fees to interact.
Brendan Veeman
Yeah, I mean, 96% is a hefty reduction in fees, and so, man, the users have to be happy about that one. Hopefully the retweet and the follower count on the Twitter is increasing after something like that. That just makes me excited hearing it because, you know, a lot of people, especially when the market cycle heats up, gas fees go up and, you know, it can be a barrier to entry. And so just even by making that kind of be reduced or in this case basically go away by 96% is a huge weight off people's shoulders. And yeah, anyway, I'm sure people are really looking forward to that and are already appreciative that it's. That it's hitting so fast. One of the things that I saw here lately, and I don't know if you got to see this, but the newly appointed crypto czar, David Sachs, actually was saying a bunch of really good stuff about Avalanche. Have you seen that clip going around by chance?
Michael Kaplan
I don't think I have, actually. I've seen all the news happenings, but haven't seen that clip specifically.
Brendan Veeman
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, there's a. There's a lot going on and I'm sure you probably had to have your head buried for this, for this upgrade going live for worse. Yeah, probably for good reasons. All right. Probably definitely for good reasons. But yeah, I mean, no, it's been. It's a really cool clip. And, you know, me and our producer TiVo were, you know, we just happened to stumble across it on one of our market rundowns. And, you know, sure enough, I mean, this is the guy who's going to be the new crypto czar of the U.S. you know, newly appointed under the new administration. And yeah, I mean, he was right there. I think it was on his podcast and he was just had a Bunch of good things to say about Avalanche. And for me, you know, no financial advice here on the podcast, but I view that as a good sign. I mean, not only is this guy bullish obviously on all crypto, but he's a huge history when it comes to finance. And this guy seems to be pretty excited about you. Just kind of like we are.
Bryce
And now he's in charge.
Brendan Veeman
Now he's in charge. So he's a good ally to have.
Michael Kaplan
Yeah. Obviously appreciate any positive feedback on our work and eager to see it continue to be moved forward. And that's not just at the technology level, but on a real industry wide level. And it's adoption throughout our society.
Bryce
No, I, I love it. And I had one question pop into my mind. It wasn't on any sort of outline or preparation that we went through. So kind of a curveball. But you know, you're, you're an engineer, you're in the weeds. I'm curious if you have any non consensus predictions about how the future of blockchains will kind of unfold, fold and you know, you could kind of take that, that consensus with a grain of salt like you know, just kind of curious what your insights are. Where's this industry going to be, you know, one year from now that most people aren't really thinking that this is going to be how things evolve.
Michael Kaplan
So I'm not sure if this would be consensus or not. I think there's differing opinions here for good reason. But one key trend that I think we have just started to see is applications. Applications launching on layer ones and then wanting eventually to become their own blockchain. And the ways that we've seen that approach go thus far is either becoming an L2 or like this L2 scaling solution or the alternative going the multichain route naval inch. So obviously I'm biased here, but I think the value add of being a sovereign L1 network yourself and not being an L2 not only allows you much more flexibility in increasing your decentralization and customizability of your chain going forward. Not being tied to a contract on L1 or on any sequencers or proof solutions, but also unblocks a lot of further experimentation that hasn't really taken root or just starting to take root rather hasn't really taken off as I expected to yet. So I think it'll be very interesting to see. Obviously many L2s are pursuing different phases of their decentralization and trustlessness as far as moving away from centralized sequencers and fault proofs and hopefully we get more confidence in ZK going forward. And if so, that's great. I'd love to see that happen on Avalanche also because that's totally possible to launch L2s on top of the C chain or on any avalanche L1 as you would any other network. But do see true value add in applications having their own true sovereign network themselves. And the interoperability that Avalanche provides and the flexibility of customizing your network to your needs, I think will be something that we hope to see very much take off in the next year.
Bryce
Awesome. Last question we have for you is just moving forward, what can we expect next year from Avalanche?
Michael Kaplan
A lot. Yeah, I think it's going to be an exciting year obviously with the greater market and sentiments of the industry really gaining traction as I think everyone has seen to date. Avalanche I think has focused on delivering on this multi chain vision. And the Avalanche 9000 upgrade in a large part was kind of the. I think I've described it as one of the last foundational cornerstones of that vision, the original vision. And now that that's in place, I would expect us to really try to push the limits as far as single chain performance. How fast can we actually push these single chains? You see claims of really high TPS. We've had various proof of concepts of 1000 TPS micropayments chain that we put out earlier in the year and we're looking to really see those through to production not just on custom VMs, but also on the EVM. And so kind of not only being the home of customizable chains, but also Avalanche being the home of the fastest chains out there is the reality that we want to try to bring about. So I'd anticipate a heavy focus on that in the year to come. And you know, I'm confident in our team to be able to deliver on it.
Brendan Veeman
Yeah, well, that's what we like to hear. So as the year goes on, as there's more updates and you know, further upgrades, you definitely got to keep us in the loop because I know that the listeners are going to want to stay aware as well. So you know Michael, we really appreciate you coming on here. Just near infinite wisdom about everything that's happening Avax and in just kind of the general future that the crypto market holds. So we appreciate you coming on. Where can people follow along, both yourself and Avalanche, on what you're working towards here?
Michael Kaplan
I am on Twitter, it's Michael Kaplan one. I can send a link right after this. That's probably the best way to reach out there's. Definitely strong presence on all the socials though, not just Twitter, discord, telegram, whatnot. I try to stay off of those as much as possible in the day to day to focus on code merged and shipped, but there's definitely strong contingencies on each and you can find me basically anywhere. And yeah, thank you bunch for for having me on. Definitely not infinite wisdom, but very excited and privileged to to be in the space that we're in where there's a lot of exciting developments happening. So yeah, thanks again for having me.
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Podcast Summary: CRYPTO 101
Episode 633: AVAX State of the Union and the Avalanche 9000 Upgrade
Release Date: December 23, 2024
Hosts: Bryce Paul & Brendan Viehman
Guest: Michael Kaplan, Engineer at Avalanche
In Episode 633 of the CRYPTO 101 podcast, hosts Bryce Paul and Brendan Veeman delve into the significant advancements within the Avalanche ecosystem, focusing on the groundbreaking Avalanche 9000 Upgrade. The episode features Michael Kaplan, a seasoned engineer at Avalanche, who provides in-depth insights into the upgrade's features, its impact on various blockchain applications, and the future trajectory of Avalanche.
Michael Kaplan has been an integral part of Ava Labs for over five years. His journey began through a connection with Avalanche's founder, Goon, during his time at Cornell University. Michael has played a pivotal role in developing Avalanche's innovative consensus algorithms and has contributed to projects like the Avalanche bridges connecting Ethereum and Bitcoin to the Avalanche C-Chain. His expertise lies in interchain messaging and enabling seamless communication between Avalanche's multiple Layer 1 (L1) chains.
The Avalanche 9000 Upgrade, which went live on December 22, 2024, marks one of the most substantial network enhancements since Avalanche's Mainnet launch in 2020. This upgrade aims to streamline the creation of sovereign L1 blockchains, enhance interoperability, and significantly reduce transaction fees on the Avalanche C-Chain.
Key Highlights:
Prior to the 9000 Upgrade, launching a subnet within Avalanche required significant AVAX holdings—specifically, 2000 AVAX per subnet validator. The upgrade removes this barrier, allowing projects to:
Notable Quote:
"Avalanche 9000 aims to make it as streamlined and easy and cost-effective as possible for you to launch your own L1 blockchain within Avalanche."
— Michael Kaplan [10:21]
The Avalanche C-Chain, known for its EVM compatibility, has seen a dramatic 96% reduction in fees post-upgrade. This makes activities like token swaps substantially cheaper, enhancing user accessibility and engagement.
Notable Quote:
"I did a swap of AVAX to USDC to test it out as soon as the upgrade went live and it was one cent. So that was really nice to see."
— Michael Kaplan [10:21]
The Retro9000 initiative allocates $40 million in retroactive rewards to developers who adopt and build upon the new features introduced in Avalanche 9000. This program encourages experimentation and the development of innovative applications across various verticals.
Notable Quote:
"We want people to adopt and play around with as quickly as possible. And that's really the motivation behind Avalanche 9000."
— Michael Kaplan [22:16]
Avalanche's customizable and scalable infrastructure allows it to cater to diverse applications, including:
Notable Quote:
"The unique aspect of Avalanche is how customizable it is so that you can apply your different requirements or performance optimizations on your own L1 network."
— Michael Kaplan [05:52]
While many blockchain projects focus on Layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions or multichain approaches, Avalanche emphasizes the creation of sovereign L1 chains. This strategy offers greater flexibility, decentralization, and the ability to tailor blockchain functionalities to specific use cases without being constrained by L1 dependencies.
Notable Quote:
"I think the value add of being a sovereign L1 network yourself and not being an L2 not only allows you much more flexibility in increasing your decentralization and customizability of your chain."
— Michael Kaplan [29:59]
Michael Kaplan anticipates a significant shift towards applications launching their own sovereign L1 blockchains to meet specific needs. He foresees Avalanche continuing to enhance its multi-chain vision by pushing the boundaries of single-chain performance and supporting ultra-fast transaction speeds.
Notable Quote:
"Avalanche being the home of the fastest chains out there is the reality that we want to try to bring about."
— Michael Kaplan [32:22]
The Avalanche 9000 Upgrade represents a monumental step forward in blockchain scalability, customization, and accessibility. By lowering the barriers to entry for launching sovereign L1 chains and drastically reducing transaction fees, Avalanche is poised to attract a diverse array of projects across various industries. With initiatives like Retro9000 and a clear focus on multi-chain integration, Avalanche continues to solidify its position as a leading blockchain platform driving innovation and adoption.
For more insights and updates on Avalanche and blockchain technology, follow Michael Kaplan on Twitter and join the Avalanche community across various social platforms.