tl;dr Summary: Avalanche Foundation officially launched the Multiverse. Multiverse is an incentive program which is focused on growing Avalanche’s Subnet platform. This program has the potential to grow the most popular parts of crypto, like DeFi, GameFi, and NFTs. What does this Multiverse program mean not only for AVAX, but the industries on which it is focusing? What are some projects that Avalanche is focusing on with their incentives?
Recently, the Avalanche Foundation launched the Multiverse. Multiverse is an incentive program of up to 4M AVAX coins (or up to $290M) which is focused on growing Avalanche’s Subnets. These subnets are designed to be an ecosystem of different blockchains focused on certain aspects of the crypto world. The Multiverse program is focused on providing incentives to new ecosystems in the realm of DeFi, blockchain-enabled gaming (GameFi), and NFTs with use cases.
What does this Multiverse program mean not only for AVAX, but also for the blockchain industries on which it is focusing? What are some projects that Avalanche is focusing on with their incentives?
What is AVAX (Avalanche)?
In order to understand how the Multiverse Program helps Avalanche achieve its goal, we must first learn about Avalanche.
Avalanche is a scalable blockchain whose goal is to become a platform for decentralized applications (Dapps) and DeFi. This makes it an Ethereum rival, as Avalanche wants to become the most popular blockchain for smart contracts.
What is a smart contract? According to IBM, “Smart contracts are simply programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met. They typically are used to automate the execution of an agreement so that all participants can be immediately certain of the outcome, without any intermediary’s involvement or time loss. They can also automate a workflow, triggering the next action when conditions are met.” Smart contracts can make certain processes faster and easier, since they can automate part of the process.
Avalanche also aims to be a fast and cheap network, thus making it more efficient than Ethereum to use. AVAX network’s gas fees cost around $1 per transaction, and while slightly more expensive than other blockchains, it is still much cheaper than Ethereum, which is currently over $10. Avalanche accomplishes their low gas fees, high scalability, and decentralization by running on three blockchains.
One of the most intriguing things on Avalanche’s platform are their subnets. What are subnets? According to Decrypt, “Subnets, also called subnetworks, are validators that allow others to establish their own Layer 1 or Layer 2 blockchains on Avalanche [emphasis added]. Because Avalanche is proof-of-stake, projects can become validators by staking $AVAX tokens.” In simpler terms, this means Avalanche allows projects to set up their own blockchains inside of the AVAX blockchain.
Avalanche also uses bridges to make it easier for users of other blockchains to swap their funds to Avalanche. Avalanche makes it easy for projects on other blockchains to integrate with Avalanche.
To sum it all up, Avalanche is a blockchain competing with Ethereum to become the most popular home for DeFi, Dapps, and everything in between. Avalanche also aims to be a vast smart contract platform.
Multiverse can help Avalanche
Based on what Avalanche’s goals are as a blockchain, it would be common sense to say that the Multiverse program will vastly help with Avalanche’s scaling of its subnet. We can compare the Multiverse program to Avalanche Rush, another incentive program aimed at growing DeFi assets and applications on one of Avalanche’s blockchains, the C-Chain.
Avalanche Rush was an extremely successful program. Since its launch in August 2021, Rush has helped Avalanche increase its TVL (total value locked) from $312M to $16B, transactions from 4M to 112M, and a growth of over 2M new unique addresses. Avalanche Rush is still an ongoing program.
Avalanche Rush helped Avalanche grow enormously early in AVAX’s creation, and the Multiverse Program has the potential to do the same thing. The Multiverse Program invests in some of the hottest parts of crypto today: DeFi, gaming, and NFTs, which could potentially make this program very successful.
However, in order for the Multiverse Program to work, they need good partners to promote their program. Let’s take a look at some companies with which Avalanche will be partnering.
DeFi Kingdoms
Avalanche has partnered with DeFi Kingdoms (JEWEL) to bring them to the Avalanche network. According to DeFi Kingdoms’ docs and FAQ, “DeFi Kingdoms is a game, a decentralized exchange (DEX), a liquidity pool (LP) opportunity, and a market of rare utility-driven NFTs, that all plays out seamlessly in the incredibly nostalgic form of fantasy pixel art.” Basically, DeFi Kingdoms is a game built on the blockchain, where you can earn rewards in Defi Kingdoms’ JEWEL token.
Avalanche will bring a DeFi Kingdoms specific subnet known as the DFK Chain into the AVAX system with a maximum of $15M in incentives. Not only this, but DeFi Kingdoms will also create their own Avalanche token called $CRYSTAL. DeFi Kingdom players will be able to earn CRYSTAL by staking JEWEL bridged over from the Harmony chain. DeFi Kingdoms will also launch the Crystalvale, a bridge built on AVAX. There is still much more information to be brought up regarding rewards and the general launch of DeFi Kingdoms on Avalanche.
DeFi Kingdoms is still a relatively new project, launching in late November last year. However, within four months of its launch, DeFi Kingdoms reached over 20,000 players. DeFi Kingdoms has also become one of the most popular crypto projects in the GameFi space, as DeFi Kingdom’s native blockchain Harmony has received some of the most volume in the GameFi space, even passing Ethereum and BSC. In fact, DeFi Kingdoms has even beaten out Axie Infinity in terms of daily volume several times. Needless to say, a relationship with DeFi Kingdoms is a big win for Avalanche.
Ava Labs Collaborations
According to Avalanche, Ava Labs—a core developer of Avalanche—“will collaborate with the Aave Companies, Golden Tree Asset Management, Wintermute, Jump Crypto, Valkyrie, Securitize and others to build the first horizontally-integrated blockchain specifically engineered for Institutional DeFi with native KYC functionality. This will enable regulated institutions to leverage the power of Subnets to access DeFi primitives at scale and accelerate the institutional adoption of DeFi.”
This is where Avalanche’s subnets come into play. AVAX’s subnets will help fuel these partnerships and ensure fast and reliable growth on the AVAX platform. These partnerships are with some big names in the DeFi space, and each of these partnerships could, as stated, “accelerate the institutional adoption of DeFi.”
Many people in the companies Avalanche is partnering with are very excited about the idea of AVAX subnet and the growth of DeFi. Here are some responses from the official Avalanche Medium page:
“Avalanche Subnets enable us to create an ideal environment for institutions to migrate on-chain and experience the power of DeFi protocols first-hand as users rather than just as investors,” said Stani Kulechov, Founder and CEO of Aave. “This is a significant leap toward a future where the barriers between traditional and decentralized finance cease to exist.”
“Subnets will be the next growth engine in crypto, enabling novel functionality only possible with network-level control and open experimentation on a scale we haven’t yet seen,” said Emin Gün Sirer, Director of the Avalanche Foundation.”
As shown from some of these responses, both sides of the partnerships are very excited about the potential of subnets and the acceleration of DeFi in an institutional environment.
All in all, the Avalanche Multiverse Program has the potential to do great things for many of the most popular spaces in crypto. DeFi, GameFi, NFTs and more can all see great growth in the future with the success of Avalanche.
What do you think about the Multiverse Program? If you are intrigued, you can comment your opinion in the comment section below this article.
