The Avalanche Snow Report: April 2025

Welcome to The Avalanche Snow Report! This monthly newsletter brings you highlights from across the Avalanche ecosystem, including DeFi, Enterprise & Institutional, NFTs & Culture, Gaming, and Infrastructure & Enablement.

Have feedback or want to learn more? Please contact brian.leiberman@avalabs.org.

Network Highlights

Avalanche Octane Is Live: A Major Leap in C-Chain Performance

Avalanche Octane—the first in a series of performance-focused upgrades—is now live on mainnet, bringing major enhancements to their Avalanche C-Chain. Powered by ACP-176, Octane replaces the static gas model with a dynamic fee mechanism that adjusts in real time based on network demand. The result: dramatically lower transaction fees, better reliability, and a smoother user experience—even during periods of high congestion.

Early data shows:

• 30% drop in average transaction fees
• 97% decrease in swap fees
• 99.5% reduction in the cost to transfer 1,000 AVAX

Why It Matters:

This upgrade positions the C-Chain as the most cost-effective and decentralized Ethereum-compatible chain available today.

🔧 Key Features of Avalanche Octane:

• Dynamic fee adjustment (ACP-176): Replaces the fixed base fee model with one that adapts to network conditions in real time
• Validator control: Enables validators to adjust target gas usage, improving scalability and responsiveness
• More predictable fees: Reduces transaction failures during periods of network congestion
• Enhanced dApp performance: Supports smoother UX for DeFi protocols, games, and on-chain applications

This is just the beginning. Octane lays the foundation for a broader set of performance and scalability upgrades coming to Avalanche in 2025.

Read more: Avalanche Blog – Octane Overview

The Avalanche Card Is Live — and the Waitlist Is Officially Over.

Tap, swipe, and spend your AVAX anywhere VISA is accepted.

Ready to roll? Sign up now.

DeFi

Euler Finance Rockets Past $190M TVL Within Weeks of Avalanche Launch

Euler Finance’s debut on Avalanche has quickly established it as one of the fastest-growing DeFi lending protocols in the ecosystem. The protocol attracted $65 million in deposits within its first 24 hours, and in less than two weeks, its total value locked (TVL) soared past $190 million, highlighting an intense user demand and trust in its risk-adjusted modular lending infrastructure.

The protocol has driven record borrowing and supply activity, particularly in stablecoins (avUSD, AUSD) and native Avalanche assets (ggAVAX, sAVAX), powering a wide range of DeFi strategies. Euler’s rapid ascent establishes Avalanche’s emergence as a premier DeFi hub, with the protocol’s modular, permissionless money markets and AVAX incentives drawing both retail and institutional users.

Learn more here.

Balancer v3 Launches on Avalanche C-Chain

Balancer v3, the highly anticipated upgrade of the decentralized automated market maker, officially launched on Avalanche in April. This milestone introduces advanced liquidity management tools, enhanced capital efficiency, and innovative features such as 100% Boosted Pools and Hooks, empowering Avalanche users with greater flexibility and composability in DeFi trading and liquidity provision.

Since launch, Balancer v3 has seen strong adoption across several flagship pools, with the AUSD/USDC/USDT stablecoin pool amassing $5 million in TVL and the sAVAX/ggAVAX/wAVAX liquid staking pool reaching $4 million. These early results reflect strong community engagement and highlight the demand for sophisticated liquidity products on Avalanche, positioning Balancer v3 as a key driver of the network’s evolving DeFi landscape.

Learn more here.

Enterprise & Institutions

How Avalanche is Rewiring Global Payments

Axiym offers real-time liquidity and financing for licensed Money Service Businesses (MSBs), eliminating the need for costly pre-funding across borders. Powered by Avalanche, Axiym has processed $132M+ in payments since March 2025], illustrating how blockchain technology can improve global financial flows.

Learn more here.

Lynq Issues Tokenized Money Market Fund TFND on Avalanche

Arca Labs, Tassat, and tZERO have collaborated to launch Lynq, a digital asset settlement network. Lynq enables real-time, yield-bearing settlement via “TFND,” a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund to be issued on Avalanche.

Learn more here.

Japanese Banking Giant SMBC Collaborates with Fireblocks, Ava Labs and TIS to Explore Stablecoin Commercial Use Cases

SMBC, Fireblocks and TIS are testing and developing infrastructure and systems to expand the use of stablecoins across Japan and beyond on Avalanche.

Learn more here.

Kor Protocol Is Launching an Avalanche L1

The decentralized IP protocol is bringing intellectual property on chain, starting with $1B in music, film, and gaming IP from partners like Black Mirror, deadmau5, Niantic, and Beatport.

Learn more here.

Gaming

Off the Grid Rolls Out Mainnet, Crossplay Squads, and $GUN

Gunzilla Games' Off the Grid has initiated its transition to the GUNZ mainnet, migrating users in batches, starting with the first playtesters. The rollout comes alongside the activation of cross-platform squads, enabling players on PC, PS5, and Xbox to team up seamlessly. Additionally, the title’s native token, $GUN, was introduced through the Binance Launchpool earlier in the month, garnering significant interest from the exchange’s user base.

Keep current with Off the Grid here.

MapleStory Universe Unveils NXPC Whitepaper

MapleStory Universe released its whitepaper for NXPC, the token which will serve as the foundation for a create-to-earn model, enabling player-creators to earn rewards by building within the ecosystem. NXPC also seeks to facilitate the creation and management of NFTs using a two-way exchange mechanism, creating flexibility in how digital items are used and traded while maintaining overall scarcity.

Read the full Whitepaper here.

Avalanche Team1

Team1 Launches $10,000 Developer Bounty

Team1 launches a $10,000 developer bounty to build with eERC20 tokens on Avalanche. There are two tracks (tooling & app) and the deadline to submit is June 1st.

Learn more here.

Team1 Hosts 60+ Community Events In One Month

Team1 has been scaling rapidly and hosted 60+ events in the last month. These included developer workshops, general meetups, University presentations, art events and game nights.

Recent event with ‘Istanbul Chain’ in Turkey here.

Infrastructure & Enablement

Interactive Brokers Launches Avalanche Support

In partnership with Zero Hash, Interactive Brokers now has seamless access to AVAX.

Learn more here.

First Retro9000 Snapshot Taken

The first snapshot for Retro9000, the retroactive L1-focused grants program, was taken on April 15th. Over the next few weeks, grants will be decided for eligible projects. The next snapshot will be July 15th.

Learn more here.

ICYMI: Avalanche Sessions