Avalanche Foundation launches $290 million developer incentive program

The not-for-profit Avalanche Foundation has launched the Multiverse incentive program worth $290 million (4 million AVAX). The initiative is aimed at developing the ecosystem’s subnets functionality.

Introducing Avalanche Multiverse, an up to $290M incentive program focused on accelerating the adoption and growth of Subnets. Multiverse is focused on supporting new ecosystems, including blockchain-enabled gaming, DeFi, NFTs and institutional use cases. https://t.co/R5euxSV5hx pic.twitter.com/PHpET78P6L

— Avalanche 🔺 (@avalancheavax) March 8, 2022

Subnets of Avalanche are similar to Ethereum layer-2 solutions and Polkadot parachains, but with fully isolated blockchain states. Any user on the platform can create a subnet.

Subnet creators can include a range of parameters — running multiple blockchains and setting their own validator requirements, such as mandatory KYC/AML.

The first project to receive incentives under Multiverse was the blockchain game DeFi Kingdoms. The developers were allocated $15 million.

According to DeFi Llama, Avalanche ranks fourth by total value locked (TVL) in smart contracts, at $10.72 billion. The largest TVL project in the ecosystem is the lending protocol Aave ($3.07 billion).

In August 2021, the Avalanche Foundation created a $180 million fund to attract DeFi applications and assets into the network. Since then the ecosystem’s TVL has increased more than thirtyfold.

In November, the organisation announced the launch of a fund of more than $200 million to accelerate development, growth and support for innovations in Avalanche.