Avail, a blockchain project that aims to solve rollup fragmentation and improve scalability, has launched its data availability mainnet and native AVAIL token.
According to a statement shared with The Block, Avail DA is a modular blockchain solution designed to optimize data availability and help developers build more scalable, cost-effective, and configurable chains.
The launch of Avail DA will activate the native AVAIL token. AVAIL will be used to pay data availability fees, and holders can start staking their tokens starting Tuesday to contribute to the security of the network. The AVAIL token will also play a key role in Avail’s governance, with the project adopting a phased approach to community decision-making, according to the official documentation.
Details on AVAIL’s token economics are currently limited. However, the team has confirmed that there is a total supply of 10 billion AVAIL tokens on The Block, and in April the project announced an airdrop of 600 million tokens for eligible participants to claim once the Avail DA layer goes live.
Avail is led by former Polygon co-founder Anurag Arjun. Avail DA is the first of three parts of Avail’s full-stack architecture, and the project is currently working towards its next two major releases: the interoperability layer Nexus and the secure network layer Fusion.
“The introduction of Avail DA and the AVAIL token represents the culmination of years of research and development to address some of the most critical challenges facing Web3 today: blockchain fragmentation, insufficient data availability, and limited scalability,” said Arjun.
How Avail Works
Avail Lite Client uses validation proofs and data availability sampling to quickly verify data on consumer-grade hardware such as mobile phones. This allows data to be sampled immediately after block confirmation. To prevent centralization, Avail uses a Proof of Stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism to evenly distribute stake tokens among validators. According to the team, the network aims to start with 1,000 validators and potentially scale to 10,000.
“By combining KZG promises with data availability sampling, we can provide the blockchain ecosystem with access to advanced data availability infrastructure today,” said Prabal Banerjee, Avail Co-founder. “With a few lines of code, developers can connect any execution environment to Avail DA and have a very powerful blockchain.”
The DA layer helps Layer 2 scaling solutions operate efficiently and securely, ensuring that all essential transaction data is publicly accessible. This transparency maintains the security and accuracy of transactions, prevents fraud, and enables stable operations outside of the main blockchain.
Avail, $75 million in funding
Avail has now raised a total of $75 million in funding from investors including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Dragonfly Capital, and Cyber Capital, following a $45 million Series A round announced in June.
Modular blockchain projects have been gaining popularity, especially since Celestia launched late last year. Lava and Inco are among the modular projects that have recently raised funds.
“As crypto becomes more modular and interoperable, Avail is building critical infrastructure to accelerate this innovation. Leveraging KZG proofs and Data Availability Sampling (DAS), the architecture achieves impressive speed and security while being completely chain-agnostic,” said Founders Fund Partner Joey Krug.
The project states that Avail DA supports a variety of blockchain architectures, including Validiums, Optimiums, Sovereign Rollups, and Bitcoin Layer 2. The team claims to have secured over 70 partnerships, including application-specific blockchains, DeFi, and web3 game chains, to integrate with Avail DA.
In April, Avail announced that five layer 2 projects, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, StarkWare, and zkSync, would be integrating with Avail’s data availability architecture after mainnet launch.
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