Avalanche is a Layer 1 blockchain that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. This means that smart contracts (the code that is used to execute minting an NFT to the blockchain) are compatible with Ethereum based smart contracts (i.e. the code is the same). This makes it inter-operable with ETH while having much lower minting costs.
Yes, Ethereum is the most widely used blockchain for NFTs, however, it has several detractors that make efficient management of NFTs on the ETH chain challenging, specifically: cost and speed. Due to these issues a number of alternative blockchain and side chains have emerged to solve these issues and one of them is Avalanche (AVAX). In this article we’ll take a closer look at Avalanche and why we think it’s a perfect chain to use for NFTs.
The reason that NFTs cost a lot to mint on Ethereum is because the amount of transactions it can handle per second is extremely low (14 TPS), compared to Avalanche being able to handle 4,500 transactions per second. That much higher rate of transactions means that miners have to compete less for validating blocks and leads to lower fees.
Avalanche has been around since September of 2020 and is created and supported by New York-based AVA Labs. Avalanche’s token (called AVAX) is in the top 20 largest cryptos, so it’s one of the core drivers of innovation on the blockchain and is widely accepted and used by Crypto developers and investors.