Avalanche Secures $250 Million Ahead of Network Upgrade

The Avalanche team has announced the successful raising of $250 million through a private token sale in anticipation of the Avalanche9000 upgrade.

Avalanche announces a $250 million private locked-token sale led by Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, and ParaFi Capital, highlighting the growing confidence in Avalanche’s blockchain ecosystem ahead of the Avalanche9000 upgrade ?https://t.co/tWmn5u9LbG

— Avalanche9000 ? (@avax) December 12, 2024

The funding round saw participation from over 40 investment firms, led by Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, and ParaFi Capital.

The developers noted that this influx of capital follows the launch of the Avalanche9000 testnet on November 25. According to them, this is a significant upgrade that reduces the cost of deploying Avalanche L1 client blockchains by 99.9% and makes C-Chain transactions—used for Ethereum-compatible smart contracts—25 times cheaper.

Alongside the testnet launch, Avalanche introduced a retroactive grant program for developers within the ecosystem, with a budget of $40 million. 

The mainnet launch of Avalanche9000 is scheduled for December 16.

According to Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer, the primary aim of the token sale was not financial.

“The main goal was to achieve alignment and motivate the right partners to collaborate,” Gün Sirer explained to Forbes.

According to the publication’s estimates, the company holds approximately $3 billion in AVAX tokens.

At the time of writing, AVAX has returned to $51.70 after a 20% drop on December 9–10. Its market capitalization stands at $21.1 billion. 

Since the beginning of November, amid a general rise in the crypto market, the token has approximately doubled in value.

The all-time high price was recorded at $144.9 in November 2021, 13 months after the launch of the Avalanche mainnet.

In October 2024, Avalanche introduced an on-chain Visa payment card.