Avalanche competes for ETF: US concept dividends are supported, executive turmoil and ecological problems remain to be solved

Author: Nancy, PANews

In the last bull market, Avalanche, which promoted the narrative of "Ethereum killer", achieved ecological prosperity and development with the help of strategic layout in tracks such as DeFi, and its market value once ranked among the top ten. However, with the cooling of the crypto market and the intensification of competition, the momentum of this once high-performance public chain has gradually faded. Today, Avalanche is exploring new growth paths through technology upgrades, ecological expansion and real-world applications. Although the activity on the chain has picked up recently, the turmoil in management and external market pressures have made it face considerable challenges in the overall recovery of its ecology.

On-chain activity has picked up, but it cannot hide the ecological challenges

In this round of crypto market cycle, most L1 public chains have gradually faded out of the mainstream vision, and only a few remain active. Avalanche is no exception. The overall ecological vitality of Avalanche has declined significantly compared with its peak period, and on-chain activities have gradually declined. Indicators such as total locked value (TVL), transaction volume, and user activity have fallen sharply.

According to DeFiLlama data, as of March 11, Avalanche's TVL was approximately $1.02 billion, a sharp drop of about 91.1% from its historical high. At the same time, Avalanche's daily transaction volume has dropped sharply from 6.36 million in 2023 to the current 427,000, and its daily revenue has also dropped from $9.72 million at the end of 2023 to about $60,000. Although the decline of Avalanche's ecology is not an isolated phenomenon, but a microcosm of the overall weakness of the current crypto market, this series of data still reflects that Avalanche's ecological scale and economic activity are facing severe challenges.

However, recent technological and ecological adjustments have brought some signs of recovery. According to official website data, as of March 11, the number of daily transactions on the Avalanche network reached 4.55 million this year, a record high in nearly a year. The total number of independent addresses has climbed to about 28.66 million, of which the number of daily active addresses once reached 359,000 this year, the best performance since February 2024.

In addition, data from the Avalanche official website and Staking Rewards show that as of March 13, a total of nearly 250 million AVAX were staked, with a staking ratio of 56.16%, making it the tenth largest PoS blockchain network.

In the community’s view, the recovery of data on multiple chains may indicate that Avalanche has not completely lost its competitiveness, but the full recovery of the ecosystem still faces multiple challenges. Especially when the living space of most L1 public chains is constantly being compressed, Avalanche’s recovery not only needs to rely on the improvement of the external market environment, but also requires the revitalization and breakthrough of the ecosystem.

Technology, ecology and ETF narrative resonate, internal crisis may become a hidden worry

From technology upgrades to real-world applications, to potential ETF narratives, Avalanche's recent market dynamics show that it is trying to revitalize the ecosystem through multi-dimensional efforts. However, Avalanche is also facing uncertainty due to internal governance crises and external market pressures.

On the technical level, at the end of December 2024, Avalanche announced the launch of the Avalanche9000 upgrade, which can significantly reduce the cost of deploying "subnet" blockchains and running smart contracts, while optimizing the verification mode and reducing the basic fee of the C chain (from 25 nAVAX to 1 nAVAX). And this upgrade supports independent operation of the chain through the "Etna" module, significantly reducing project startup costs and meeting different regulatory needs. It is worth mentioning that the Avalanche Foundation also raised US$250 million from investment institutions such as Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly and ParaFi Capital that month to support the upgrade deployment, and it is expected that hundreds of primary blockchains will be launched in the coming months.

Earlier this month, Avalanche also announced its 2025 roadmap, with major updates including Etna network upgrades, the global adoption plan Avalanche9000 Campaign, and renaming the subnet to Avalanche L1 to increase flexibility, etc. This also further demonstrates Avalanche's continued in-depth optimization of technology.

At the level of ecological applications, Avalanche has shown a momentum of blossoming in multiple areas. On the one hand, Avalanche is polishing its own products. For example, the Avalanche core wallet Core ushered in a comprehensive upgrade at the beginning of this month, including a new brand logo, mobile terminal and browser plug-in UI optimization. The new version is expected to be released in early spring, aiming to lower the threshold for new users and improve ecological stickiness through a simplified user interface and enhanced functions (such as AI-driven interaction). On the other hand, Avalanche is expanding real-life cases. For example, in February this year, the Avalanche Visa card was launched, allowing users to use AVAX, packaged AVAX, and stablecoins USDT and USDC in any store that accepts Visa; and Avalanche has cooperated with technology companies Republic, New York Red Bulls Football Team, Dantewada County, India, crypto disclosure solution provider Bluprynt and crypto payment solution NOWPayments to achieve the landing of real-life application scenarios such as movies, sports, land and payments. In addition, Avalanche is also expanding its ecology. For example, in the field of AI, in addition to the Avalanche Foundation and Aethir jointly launching the $100 million fund infraBUIDL (AI) Program to provide support for AI innovation projects in the ecology.

As a US concept project, Avalanche's parent company Ava Labs is a US-based company and may benefit from the gradual opening of the US crypto regulatory environment. Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, revealed last year that Avalanche is in discussions with the incoming US government, but the team will not show off its political relationship with the government on social media, but will directly present the results in a "complete Avalanche style" and advise the community to "make plans accordingly."

In addition, according to Delaware company registration information, VanEck registered the "VanEck Avalanche ETF" on March 10, 2025. In addition to Avalanche, VanEck has also applied for spot ETFs such as Solana and Ripple. Although these cryptocurrencies may attract more institutional attention and capital inflows after the ETF application is approved, they are generally believed by the market to be only in the stage of hype to create topics, rather than based on solid ecological value, and are difficult to transform into long-term growth momentum.

Despite the impressive external progress, Avalanche faces turbulent challenges internally. According to a recent statement released on X by Omer, a former director of the Avalanche Foundation, three directors including Omer, Aytunç Yildizli and Vikram Nagrani officially resigned from the board of directors of the foundation and its subsidiaries at the beginning of this week. Among them, executive director Aytunç Yildizli stopped performing his duties on February 28, 2025. This collective resignation was a difficult decision. Since then, the board of directors has been at a standstill, trying to find a way forward. Management turmoil may affect Avalanche's strategic execution and weaken community confidence, especially during market downturns.

In general, current technological upgrades and real-world applications have injected vitality into the Avalanche ecosystem, and the US regulatory dividends and ETF potential have added room for imagination. However, whether Avalanche can sound the clarion call for a counterattack may not only depend on the internal cultivation of technology and ecology, but also rely on the east wind of market recovery.