The Avalanche Foundation announced its ‘biggest network upgrade’ in the form of Avalanche9000 mainnet. The new upgrade reduces deployment costs and C-Chain fees by more than 90%.

On Dec. 17, the Avalanche9000 mainnet goes live with a major upgrade dubbed Etna, which serves to eliminate issues faced by developers on the Avalanche (AVAX) network, including high staking requirements and high validator costs. The Etna upgrade fixes these issues by enabling layer1 blockchains to run independently from the primary network.

This means that validators are no longer required to validate the primary network on Avalanche so these chains can have their own validator set. This major change simplifies the validation process for emerging layer1 projects and reduces operational and upfront fees significantly.

In the old subnet model, each new blockchain launched on Avalanche has to receive validation on the primary network. This step is accompanied by an upfront stake fee of at least 2000 AVAX tokens or worth around $100,000, as well as the hardware required to validate these chains.

By introducing this upgrade, Avalanche claims to have reduced layer1 deployment costs by 99.9% and decreased C-Chain fees by 96%.

In addition, Avalanche9000 simplifies the process of building layer1 blockchains on the network, thus bringing them into the market faster. Developers are given more control in customizing their layer1s in terms of staking, economics, gas, tokens and more.

One of the key features that this upgrade highlights is Avalanche’s built-in Interchain Messaging, which facilitates communication between the Avalanche C-chain and Avalanche layer1s. This feature works for both new and existing layer1s.

Developers can use the messaging protocol to send and receive cross-chain EVM messages. Avalanche blockchains can send any type of information using ICM, including tokens, NFTs and oracle price feed data.

As previously reported by crypto.news, the Avalanche Foundation first unveiled plans to release its Avalanche9000 upgrade on Dec. 2, calling it the “biggest network upgrade since the protocol launched.” The news was accompanied by an increase in overall quarter-on-quarter metrics during Q3 2024.