AI and gaming projects on Avalanche could gain more support with Aethir
Avalanche Weekly Overview - January 22, 2025
Welcome to the Avalanche Weekly Overview. A one-stop-shop for the AVAX community to get up to speed on the Avalanche blockchain network’s latest updates, metrics, releases, insights, ecosystem developments and more. All in one place.
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Avalanche by the numbers
AVAX token price: $37.13 (-4.89%)
Max transactions per second: 588 (+8.69%)
Network’s total transactions: 27.14M (-2.02%)
Avalanche C-Chain daily txns: 336.6K (-36.1%)
DeFiLlama’s Avalanche TVL: $1.4B (+0%)
Top 3 Avalanche DeFi projects by TVL:
Benqi: $716.53M (+2.49%)
Aave: $536.36M (+11.83%)
LFJ: $153.82M (+3.45%)
These metrics are based on a 7-day time frame, unless noted otherwise.
Inside the network
🔺What we’re watching: Aethir, a cloud compute provider, announced the team, alongside its $100 million ecosystem fund, will join the Avalanche Foundation’s infraBUIDL(AI) committee to fast-track projects
🔺Why it matters: This collaboration aims to advance AI development within the Avalanche ecosystem by integrating Aethir's $100 million ecosystem fund into Avalanche’s infraBUIDL(AI) Program.
“This is our first major partnership involving third-party grant activity,” Avalanche Foundation CEO Aytunç Yildizli said in the blog post. “Aethir’s $100 million in computing power will accelerate AI and gaming projects on Avalanche."
For context, the infraBUIDL(AI) Program is an Avalanche initiative that provides up to $15 million in funding in order to help position the network as a hub for AI-driven blockchain innovation. In short, it supports projects that merge decentralized infrastructure with AI.
With the inclusion of Aethir’s $100 million ecosystem fund, it can expedite the development of AI and gaming projects in terms of resources they may need. By joining the program’s fund, Aethir can bring its expertise in GPU computing to support web3 applications. This means that projects who were accepted into the InfraBUIDL(AI) program can expect multiple support pillars at one time.
The reason Aethir’s inclusion stands out from other grantees is for two reasons: it’s the first inclusion of a third-party grant activity for the program and Aethir has a reported annual recurring revenue of $91 million. “Our cloud computing infrastructure consists of over 400,000+ GPU containers, including 3000+ NVIDIA H100s and H200s, along with 61,000+ Aethir Edge cloud computing devices,” the team shared in a blog post. This elevates Aethir as a stand out name in the DePIN solution sector.
🔺The bigger picture: Aethir’s inclusion is Avalanche’s next initiative to support the next wave of AI dApps; all while showcasing Avalanche’s capabilities and offerings to an array of projects. In addition, Avalanche’s ecosystem is already very focused on gaming and has gained AI share - so the inclusion of Aethir will continue to strengthen it.
Last week, Avalanche ranked fifth in mindshare against other layer-1 networks, according to Kaito AI data (chart below). Mindshare is important to take into account because it can be a good indicator for market sentiment. If Avalanche can stay top of mind for AI agents, new users may turn to it as their network of choice.
It's also important to note that despite recent market conditions, AI and web3 gaming remain at the top of mind for most blockchains and crypto users. If Aethir can provide the right tools for these AI and gaming projects, it would only enhance the network’s presence and capabilities.
Scaling the ecosystem
Top 3 Avalanche games by 7-day total txns:
Gunzilla Testnet: 17.5M (-3.02%)
Pulsar: 12.6M (-5.96%)
Defi Kingdoms: 4.68M (-0.80%)
ICYMI: $TRUMP can be traded across Solana to Avalanche using Stargate’s bridge
AIvalanche (no that’s not a typo) launched its DeFAI agent platform to automate DeFi protocols use via voice or text commands
DEX volume generated on Avalanche hit $579M, a 322% increase YTD (shown below)
Source: Artemis
Active L1s: 47
L1 validators: 265
Total L1 validators: 1,543
Total blockchains created in the Avalanche network: 51
Total staked across L1s: 509,274 AVAX
Distribution of L1s by category. Source: Snowpeer
AVAX community wins
Ava Labs Head of Asia Justin Kim spoke about Avalanche at Korea’s Virtual Assets Conference - here’s some snippets from the talk:
TradFi companies like Citi, JP Morgan and KKR are utilizing Avalanche for tokenization
Asia-based consumer brands like Alipay and Grab are integrating Avalanche-powered stablecoins to their payment services
AIvalanche DeFAI Agents CEO Jeff Lam held an AMA on his plans to create more AI agent opportunities on Avalanche
Pulsar hosted a live stream with its founders to share its future plans and the team disclosed it's TGE will happen on Feb. 5
Avalanche Archives
Here’s Avalanche-based articles that made headlines this week.
Empower Your Digital Assets with Colony Labs on the Avalanche Platform (Avalanche Team1 DAO)
Why OFF THE GRID has taken the Web3 World by Storm? (Beluga on X)
Asset Tokenization: A comprehensive report and why you should start caring about the technology (Mastercard Blog)
Check out the Avalanche blog for more updates.
Join in the fun
Want to dive deeper into Avalanche?
FAN, an Avalanche L1 for live sports entertainment, partnered with Blum for a quest campaign - details here
Parallel is hosting a tournament weekend at HyperX Arena in Las Vegas from Feb. 28 - March 2 featuring Parallel, Off The Grid and Shatterline
Avalanche’s next Summit event is taking place in London from May 20-22
Sign up for their hackathon event on May 23 for a chance at a $50K prize pool
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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.
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