Avalanche was launched in 2020, with the aim to be fast, versatile, secure, affordable, and accessible. AVAX, its native token, is used to pay transaction fees, secure the Avalanche network, and serve as a basic unit of account among Avalanche blockchains. The Avalanche blockchain enables near-instant transaction completion and can process 4,500 transactions per second. Avalanche is also an open-source project, which means anyone can view and contribute to the platform's code.