Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

AVAX is testing the lower boundary of a falling wedge at key Fibonacci support.
A death cross on the 4-hour chart keeps the rebound unconfirmed.
Charles Schwab calls Avalanche a leader in institutional blockchains and RWA tokenization.
The broker warns that institutional adoption may not translate into demand for AVAX.

AVAX price is trading near $9.21 on the 4-hour chart, sitting on its most important support zone at $9.00-$9.20 after a 23% pullback from the late-September high of $12.01, with a falling wedge pattern set to resolve within days. The test comes as Charles Schwab, the brokerage with roughly $13 trillion in client assets, published an analysis of Avalanche and Chainlink on October 20 that names Avalanche a leader in institutional blockchains and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, while questioning whether that position will ever translate into demand for the token.

JUST IN: Charles Schwab identifies Avalanche as a leader in RWAs and institutional use cases.

New research from @CharlesSchwab points to custom L1s and high-utility financial activity as key differentiators for the network. pic.twitter.com/vLhdjuebkL

— Avalanche🔺 (@avax) October 21, 2026

A rally on volume, a pullback without it
Between September 17 and September 29, AVAX rallied nearly 68% in just over 12 days, climbing from $7.17 to $12.01. Over the following 23 days it gave back more than 23% of its value. Total volume was almost identical in both phases, about 84.8 million AVAX in the rally and 83.6 million in the correction, but the decline lasted nearly twice as long, so average volume per candle during the pullback is roughly half of what it was on the way up. Sellers have been pushing price lower with fading participation, a pattern that tends to accompany a correction more often than a trend reversal.

A falling wedge at the 0.618 level
AVAX/USDT 4H chart. Source: Alexander Stefanov on TradingView
Since early October, price has compressed into a falling wedge, a pattern of two converging downward lines in which each high is lower than the last ($11.70, $11.00, $10.50, $9.95) while the lows drop by shrinking steps. AVAX is now testing the wedge’s lower boundary just above $9.02, the level where price would retrace 61.8% of the September rally and where pullbacks within strong trends often stall. That overlap makes $9.00-$9.20 the decisive support on the chart, and the wedge’s apex falls around October 26-27.

The death cross and the $9.90 wall
The 50-period exponential moving average ($9.79) has just slipped below the 200-period average ($9.90), which in practice means the average price of roughly the last eight days is now lower than the average of the past month. On October 21, AVAX attempted a breakout but was rejected exactly at the upper wedge line, where both averages also sit, turning $9.80-$9.90 into a dense resistance cluster.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) stands at 35, close to the 30 mark below which the market is considered oversold, and remains under its signal line at 45. The indicator’s lows have stayed roughly flat while price kept printing lower lows, a mild bullish divergence that still lacks confirmation.

Level
Price
Role

Top of the wedge
$11.50-$11.70
Breakout target

Fibonacci 0.382
$10.16
Resistance

Wedge line and EMAs
$9.80-$9.90
Key resistance

Fibonacci 0.5
$9.59
Support after breakout

Fibonacci 0.618
$9.00-$9.20
Key support

Fibonacci 0.786
$8.20
Breakdown target

Levels from the AVAX/USDT 4-hour chart on Binance as of October 22.

What Schwab sees in Avalanche
Analysts at the Schwab Center for Financial Research do not put Avalanche in a head-to-head fight with Ethereum or Solana for overall dominance. They describe it as infrastructure on which banks, funds and companies build their own blockchains, with access rules, fees and compliance settings tailored to their needs. The report credits the network with capacity above 4,500 transactions per second, an activity mix led by stablecoins, lending, asset management and liquid staking, and favorable tokenomics thanks to the 720 million maximum supply and the burning of every transaction fee.

$3.4B

Total value locked, fifth among smart contract chains

< $2B

Tokenized RWAs on Avalanche

~$50B

Total tokenized RWA market

200x-1,200x

AVAX value vs. three years of network fees

Source: Charles Schwab, August-September 2026 data.

Why the institutional story may not lift AVAX
The sharpest argument in the report targets Avalanche itself. An institution that launches its own chain can run nearly all of its activity outside the primary network, and those transactions do not generate the burned fees that create demand for AVAX. Tokenized bonds and funds also change hands rarely, so even a large volume of issuance can produce little fee revenue.

Schwab values the network through a kind of network “GDP”, meaning the economic activity users actually pay for. On that basis, AVAX carries a market value between 200 and 1,200 times the fees collected over the past three years, comparable to an extremely high price-to-earnings multiple in equities, and those fees have been declining since 2023. Avalanche also holds less than 4% of the tokenized asset market, where Ethereum controls a far larger share.

The research is separate from Schwab’s August 27 decision to add SOL, AVAX and LINK to Schwab Crypto “in the coming months”, which will give the broker’s clients access to AVAX trading at a 0.75% fee per trade. The listing concerns trading access only and does not mean Schwab uses Avalanche for its own settlement or tokenization.

The wedge resolves by October 27
To cancel the death cross signal, AVAX price needs a 4-hour close above the wedge and the moving averages at $9.80-$9.90. That would flip $9.59 into support, put the next resistance at $10.16, and leave the pattern’s measured move pointing back toward $11.50-$11.70. A decisive close below $9.00 would break both the wedge and the 0.618 level, opening the way toward $8.20, which also lines up with the early-September highs.

A falling wedge on declining volume, resting on the 0.618 level after a strong impulse, more often ends with a continuation of the prior rally, so the structure leans slightly in favor of buyers. The death cross and the rejection at the averages show the bounce is not confirmed, and until AVAX reclaims $9.90, the $9.00 support decides the direction.

Beyond the next few sessions, two catalysts sit outside the chart. Schwab has not set a launch date for AVAX trading and has reserved the right to delay or change its plans, while daily fees on Avalanche’s primary network, the weak spot the report singles out, are public data that will show whether institutional interest starts turning into real demand for the token.

Alex is a financial markets journalist and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, and he's spent close to ten years trying to answer one stubborn question: what's really driving this?
It started in 2016, when Bitcoin refused to make sense to him - and rather than shrug, he stayed with it until it did. That patience became his method. He's less interested in what an asset is doing today than in the plumbing behind it: how liquidity flows, where risk hides, what a chart is quietly telling you that the headline isn't. That lens eventually stretched well past crypto into traditional markets, because the same forces - fear, leverage, incentives, timing - show up everywhere once you know how to look.
Most coverage, in his view, insults the reader by stopping at the surface. Price up, price down, moving on. He'd rather leave someone genuinely understanding a move than merely informed that it happened.
His path into markets ran through a Tourism degree at New Bulgarian University - proof, maybe, that curiosity beats credentials. With more than 200 deep analyses and over 10,000 articles behind him, he still walks away from most trading days having learned something he didn't know that morning.

Full Profile

Avalanche’s decentralized exchange (DEX) activity has seen a significant increase, with 30-day trading volume rising to $4.1 billion in October 2026, marking a 29% month-over-month gain. This growth comes amid a broader decline in DEX volume across other major Layer-1 blockchain networks, positioning Avalanche as a notable outlier capturing greater trading market share during the period.

Pharaoh Exchange dominance and concentrated liquidityThe recent momentum within Avalanche’s DEX sector is highly concentrated among a few platforms. Pharaoh Exchange, an automated market maker with specialized liquidity solutions, accounts for roughly $3.12 billion, or 76%, of Avalanche’s total DEX trading volume. According to DeFiLlama, the platform achieved this dominance with just $43 million to $53 million in total value locked (TVL), signaling a turnover ratio far higher than traditional constant-product market makers.

Uniswap and LFJ also posted strong performance. Uniswap’s trading volume on Avalanche surged 95% to $392 million, while LFJ’s volume climbed 165% to $201 million, both benefiting from heightened attention to concentrated liquidity design and adaptable fee structures.

Collectively, the three leading DEXs now account for more than 89% of Avalanche’s entire DEX trading activity, resulting in deeper liquidity pools capable of accommodating larger trades and minimizing slippage for both traders and liquidity providers.

DEX PlatformVolume (30 days)Change (%)Share of Avalanche DEX VolumePharaoh Exchange$3.12 billionN/A76%Uniswap$392 million+95%9.5%LFJ$201 million+165%4.9%For developers, rising DEX throughput frequently spurs increased lending, bridging, and related derivatives activity across the platform.

Technical drivers and capital efficiencyPharaoh Exchange’s remarkable efficiency relies on the V3 and DLMM (Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker) protocols. DLMM enables liquidity providers to target their capital within specific price ranges, maximizing fees per dollar locked. This mechanism has reportedly been customized for Avalanche’s infrastructure, making use of the chain’s low fees and high throughput.

However, while active market makers can benefit from this model, passive liquidity suppliers may face elevated risks, such as impermanent loss if their chosen price ranges prove suboptimal. Furthermore, the heavy concentration of activity on Pharaoh raises concerns about a single point of failure in network liquidity, as reliance on its infrastructure becomes more pronounced.

Mini dictionary: DLMM (Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker) is a protocol that allows liquidity providers to set capital allocations for specific price bins, dynamically optimizing for market conditions. This design maximizes capital efficiency but introduces complexity compared to traditional market makers.

Broader DeFi implications and future risksThe DEX sector’s momentum on Avalanche aligns with industry-wide adoption of concentrated liquidity mechanics, first popularized by Uniswap V3 in 2021. Avalanche’s ability to offer high throughput and low transaction costs has made it a favored network for stablecoin settlements and tokenized asset trading.

A core strength of the current ecosystem is the depth of liquidity, attracting aggregators, integrations, and external incentives. Yet this same concentration increases potential vulnerabilities, exposing the network to governance disputes, fee allocation challenges, and heightened resilience risks should a leading protocol encounter issues.

With volume highly concentrated, a single exploit impacting a dominant DEX such as Pharaoh could significantly disrupt the broader Avalanche network’s liquidity and market confidence.

For investors and institutional participants, sustained DEX activity reflects differences in how Layer-1 ecosystems compete beyond simple transaction volumes. Observers point to indicators such as ongoing fee generation and user retention as signals of lasting DeFi growth, rather than temporary trading patterns.

For DEX operators on other blockchains, Avalanche’s experience highlights the impact of capital efficient models and platform specialization. While Pharaoh currently leads the market, competitors like Uniswap and LFJ are gaining ground. Whether the upward trend continues may depend on evolving incentive schemes, market volatility, and users’ willingness to remain engaged with Avalanche-based DeFi services.

Ripple filed its comment letter on the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, supporting to finalize the proposed crypto rules. It rests on the Howey test, treating the investment contract, not the crypto asset itself as the security, and builds on a prior joint SEC-CFTC harmonization initiative.

Ripple CLO Stuart Alderoty said “We support the proposal, and the SEC has clear authority to adopt it.” He added that previous “case by case, coin by coin” enforcement has pushed crypto innovation offshore. He claimed the industry needs holistic rules for digital assets, and the Regulation Crypto Assets framework is a major move.

The proposal stays faithful to the Howey Test. Ripple CLO clarified the investment contract is a security, not a token. Stuart Alderoty cited that Ripple has spent more than $150 million to get clarity on XRP not a security.

“What matters is what an issuer actually promised and when those promises end, not a subjective decentralization test,” he added. Clear rules grounded in existing law will bring capital, investor protection and innovation to the U.S.

Also Read: XRP Finally Launches Official X Account and Website Managed by Ripple and XRPLF

Cardano, Chainlink, Hedera, Stellar & Others Join Ripple on SEC’s Regulation Crypto Assets
Chainlink partnered with Cardano, Hedera, Stellar, Aptos, and Avalanche in urging the SEC to codify its digital commodity framework. With Ripple seeking to exempt certain crypto assets from full SEC securities registration, the Blockchain Association also urged raising the startup exemption limit from $5 million to $10 million.

“Builders need lasting certainty. Codifying this progress would be a meaningful step toward keeping America the home of digital asset innovation,” said Chainlink head of policy Taylor Barr.

.@chainlink is proud to partner with @hedera, @Aptos, @AvaLabs, and @StellarOrg in urging the SEC to codify its digital commodity framework.

Builders need lasting certainty. Codifying this progress would be a meaningful step toward keeping America the home of digital asset… pic.twitter.com/rAjs9C6vdy

— Taylor Barr (@taylorjbarr) October 20, 2026

Although the official comment period for the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets closed on October 20, the commission will continue accepting public feedback after the deadline, according to journalist Eleanor Terrett.

“While we encourage commenters to submit their feedback by the deadline, the Commission will continue to accept public comments on rule proposals after the comment period closes.”

The new crypto rules would create new fundraising exemptions for crypto issuers raising capital in the U.S., while the CLARITY Act developments remain uncertain ahead of midterm elections.

Also Read: Best Crypto Compliance Companies and KYC Providers for Web3 Enterprises

Decentralized finance activity on Avalanche has become increasingly concentrated, with Pharaoh Exchange now processing $3.11 billion of the network’s $4.16 billion decentralized exchange (DEX) volume over the past 30 days, according to DeFiLlama data. This concentration means Pharaoh accounts for approximately 75 percent of Avalanche’s total DEX activity during the period.

Pharaoh Exchange leads with innovative liquidityPharaoh Exchange leverages V3 and DLMM liquidity pools, enabling liquidity providers to focus capital within set price ranges. This approach not only enhances the efficiency of deployed funds but also reduces slippage—allowing substantial trading volume with a relatively low total value locked (TVL) base.

With TVL fluctuating between $43 million and $53 million, Pharaoh has distinguished itself through efficiency rather than size. Its design, based on the Uniswap v3 standard, facilitates composable liquidity and is now being adopted across leading blockchains including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Solana.

Pharaoh’s advanced pool structures are particularly effective with stablecoin and blue-chip trading pairs, where the quality and consistency of order execution is paramount. The reported 30-day fees reached $2.83 million, with revenue of $2.75 million, demonstrating strong cash flow relative to its trading volume.

Pharaoh Exchange, operating with a TVL range as low as $43 million, generated $3.11 billion in 30-day trading volume, highlighting a strategic focus on capital efficiency and targeted liquidity deployment within the Avalanche ecosystem.

Network trading volumes rose by 43.29 percent compared to the previous 30-day window, underlining accelerating momentum for Avalanche-based decentralized finance protocols.

All-time highs and ecosystem impactPharaoh recently recorded monthly all-time highs, processing $2.866 billion in 30-day trading volume and collecting $2.48 million in fees. Cumulative exchange volume has now surpassed $35 billion, with lifetime fees totaling more than $32 million. Weekly DEX activity across Avalanche reached $1.13 billion, the highest figure since March, while tokenized stock inflows for the week ending September 25, 2026 reached $131.2 million.

Stablecoin market capitalization on the AVAX C-Chain climbed to $933.9 million, and distributed asset value totaled $1.80 billion. Other Avalanche DEX platforms posted significant gains as well, with Trader Joe V2.2 fees jumping 208.29 percent daily and 173.91 percent on a weekly basis, suggesting robust ecosystem-wide growth.

Ongoing migration from V2 to V3 pools across DEXes is nearing completion, scheduled to conclude by October 31, 2026. This consolidation is expected to further enhance liquidity efficiency network-wide.

Risks and outlook as activity intensifiesPharaoh’s dominance introduces notable concentration risk, especially should operational challenges arise. While the adoption of Pharaoh’s pools supports composability and integration by developers, it could create vulnerabilities if most activity is routed through a single venue.

Institutional participants, as trading volumes climb, are likely to view this as validation of Avalanche’s DeFi environment but remain attentive to fee sustainability, incentive structures, and TVL stability.

For developers and institutional users, Pharaoh’s dominance is a double-edged sword, bringing efficiency and deep liquidity while heightening exposure to potential single-platform issues.

For regulators and industry stakeholders, this concentration mirrors dynamics in traditional finance where market share can aggregate around leading venues, though decentralized settlement remains a core feature.

Avalanche’s ability to support continued developer activity, maintain stablecoin liquidity, and facilitate cross-chain capital flows will be crucial for further growth. Analysts stress the need for monitoring Pharaoh’s fee-to-market cap ratio, changes in TVL, and Avalanche’s standing versus larger chains.

If weekly volumes stay above $1 billion, Avalanche could reclaim its position among top DEX ecosystems. The end of incentive programs and the emergence of new competitors will test Pharaoh’s ability to retain share and sustain performance.

Closely watching the continued evolution of technical indicators and investor strategies becomes increasingly important in fast-moving markets. In the meme token market segment, an internet-driven trend can rapidly generate significant value. Notably, Fomo App reported a trade in “Niu Lai” that transformed a $99 investment into nearly $370,000—a sharp illustration of this sector’s volatility. The ability to monitor investor timing and token selection is essential, and Fomo App consolidates discovery, trading, social feeds, investor rankings, and trade notifications into a single platform for following meme token and investor activity.

Avalanche (AVAX) chain fees have climbed from $1,066 on July 30 to a peak of $64,010 on September 24. Here is what is driving the rise and what it means for AVAX.

Avalanche chain revenue has risen sharply since late summer. Daily fees generated by @avax were as low as $1,066 on July 30 and have grown steadily since. The daily figure now sits closer to $10,000 to $20,000, and it reached as high as $64,010 on September 24.

The jump raises a familiar question for $AVAX holders: is a broader recovery in the token finally taking shape?

What is behind the rise in Avalanche feesSeveral factors appear to be feeding into higher on-chain activity. Cryptonomist reported in early September that fees on the Avalanche decentralised exchange Pharaoh CL had jumped more than 1,150% over 30 days, pointing to a pickup in DeFi trading.

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation is another theme. According to Crypto Briefing, citing The Defiant, AVAX rose 49.7% over four weeks, outpacing Bitcoin and Ether. The report attributed the move to the Helicon upgrade and $266 million in RWA growth on the network.

Current data is broadly consistent with the fee levels described above. CoinGecko shows Avalanche recorded $10,238 in fees over the past 24 hours. Tron Weekly, citing Chainspect, said the network generated $97,348 in revenue over seven days, the first time it crossed the $95,000 weekly mark.

Is AVAX season finally here?The price has responded, but context matters. CryptoTicker reported AVAX at around $11.09 on October 12, up 7.2% on the day, while Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and XRP were all lower over the week.

Even so, the token remains far below its past highs. AOL noted that on October 10, AVAX traded about 93% below its peak of $144.96. The same piece cautioned that the only mechanical link between institutional fund activity and coin price is transaction fees, which are small relative to billion-dollar market caps.

The scale of revenue is also modest. At $432,400 over 30 days, annualised network earnings would be about $5.2 million, according to Coingabbar, citing Chainspect data. That is small against a market capitalisation of roughly $4.6 billion.

Fee growth from a very low base is a positive sign for usage, but it does not on its own confirm a lasting trend for the token. Traders will be watching whether revenue holds at current levels and whether AVAX can clear resistance near $11.60.

Sources:

Crypto Briefing: Avalanche's AVAX gains 50% in four weeks
Tron Weekly: Avalanche network activity and AVAX price outlook
CoinGecko: Avalanche price and fee data

The Korea Securities Depository is building a token platform that connects with Avalanche, Hyperledger Besu and Hyperledger Fabric ahead of South Korea's February 2027 tokenized securities rules.

The Korea Securities Depository (KSD), which keeps official ownership records for Korean stocks and bonds, is building a token platform designed to connect with @avax, Hyperledger Besu and Hyperledger Fabric. A KSD official said Avalanche ($AVAX) was added after requests from several companies, according to Seoul Economic Daily.

Why Avalanche made the listSeoul Economic Daily's report, as summarised by crypto.news, said the KSD official told the publication that several companies had asked for Avalanche support through industry consultations and existing projects. The depository's published distributed-ledger requirements cover all three networks.

Access to the connected ledgers will stay limited to approved institutions such as securities companies and the depository itself. The KSD would take part in the networks directly to oversee total issuance and electronic registration information, crypto.news reported. For securities firms, the multi-network approach means they can choose between several blockchain options when building systems for the new framework.

Hanwha Investment & Securities, part of @Hanwha_Official, has already built a token platform that can run on Avalanche. According to the same report, the brokerage began developing the system with blockchain firm FairSquare Lab in 2025, and it was built to operate across several networks, including Avalanche and Hyperledger Besu, an Ethereum-compatible enterprise blockchain.

Rules take effect February 4, 2027South Korea's tokenized securities rules take effect on February 4, 2027. Amendments to the Electronic Securities Act and the Capital Markets Act will recognise distributed ledgers as infrastructure for issuing and circulating securities.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) has laid out a phased rollout. The Elec reported that the first phase, starting in February 2027, covers privately placed money market funds and bonds for institutional investors, unlisted shares issued through a trust structure, and publicly offered fractional investment securities. Blockonomi reported that the FSC proposed detailed rules on October 1, 2026, with a public comment period running to November 11.

Inclusion in the KSD's guidelines does not make Avalanche the sole infrastructure for Korea's securities market. The depository is planning support for several ledger technologies, and reports so far do not say that Hanwha's platform has been integrated into the KSD's system.

Sources:

crypto.news: Hanwha taps Avalanche for tokenized securities platform in South KoreaThe Elec: South Korea to Begin Tokenizing Unlisted Stocks, Bonds and Funds in FebruaryBlockonomi: South Korea Proposes Rules for Tokenized Stocks and Bonds Starting 2027

Axiym’s stablecoin payment volume on Avalanche has grown 4.4 times over the past year, climbing to more than $2 billion.

What Axiym actually does
Axiym is a Dubai-based liquidity-as-a-service platform. Its customers are licensed money services businesses, or MSBs, the companies that move remittances and business payments across borders.

Those firms have long lived with something called pre-funding. Picture a remittance company that wants to pay out in a dozen countries. It typically has to park cash in local accounts in each one ahead of time, just in case customers send money there.

Axiym’s model removes that requirement. Running on Avalanche’s C-Chain and using stablecoins as settlement rails, the platform lets MSBs operate with far less working capital tied up. According to the research findings, that means 70-90% less capital lockup.

CEO Khibar Rassul has framed the value in those terms: Axiym unlocks capital that was previously trapped in pre-funding.

The growth curve so far
By April 2025, Axiym had processed $132 million in cumulative volume on Avalanche.

A year later the picture looked very different. The platform had crossed $1.2 billion in volume in under a year by April 2026.

By August 2026, processed volume exceeded $1.6 billion. A September 2026 case study then reported more than $1.43 billion processed during Axiym’s first year on the network.

The latest figure puts stablecoin payment volume above $2 billion, reflecting the 4.4x jump over the past year.

Monthly activity has also held up. Stablecoin payment volumes have stayed above $130 million every month since January 2026, with some months topping $170 million and peaks reported as high as $180 million.

The network behind it
Axiym integrates with established payment networks, and its partners process over $25 billion annually across more than 150 countries. Those partners handle somewhere between 60 and 96 currencies, depending on the figure cited.

Why stablecoins fit this problem
Stablecoins are tokens pegged to a currency like the US dollar, and they can settle on a blockchain within minutes at any hour. For an MSB, faster settlement means less money needs to sit in limbo. If settlement is quick and predictable, the need to pre-stock accounts around the world shrinks dramatically.

What this means
For the payments industry, Axiym is a test case for whether liquidity-as-a-service can meaningfully change how MSBs manage cash. Cutting capital lockup by 70-90% would let firms enter more corridors without raising more money.

There are open questions worth watching. The first is whether the growth rate holds as the base gets larger, since 4.4x is easier from a few hundred million than from several billion.

The second is regulatory. MSBs are heavily supervised, and any shift in how authorities treat stablecoin settlement across jurisdictions could speed up or slow down adoption of models like Axiym’s.

The third is concentration. Much of the pitch depends on stablecoins staying stable and liquid, so the reliability of those underlying tokens is effectively part of Axiym’s product.

For now, the trajectory is clear enough. A platform that measured its cumulative volume at $132 million in April 2025 is now reporting stablecoin payments above $2 billion, built on the unglamorous but valuable task of freeing up trapped cash.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

AVAX Spot ETFs Post Strongest Inflow Day Since AprilSpot Avalanche ($AVAX) ETFs recorded their largest single-day net inflow since April on October 8, pulling in $2.52 million. The move marks a notable shift in momentum for a product suite that had spent much of the summer and early autumn struggling to attract meaningful capital.

Three regulated spot AVAX products are currently available to U.S. investors: VanEck's VAVX, listed on Nasdaq; Grayscale's GAVA; and Bitwise's BAVA, which launched on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2026.

ETFs Now Hold 1.26% of Circulating AVAX SupplyCollectively, the three spot products hold 1.26% of AVAX's current circulating supply, according to SoSoValue data. That share of supply locked inside regulated wrappers is modest in absolute terms but carries supply-side implications, particularly given that a portion of those holdings is actively staked.

Staked tokens are temporarily removed from liquid supply, which could act as a mild tailwind for price if demand continues to build.

The October 8 inflow figure stands out because it arrives after an extended period of subdued activity. The jump to $2.52 million just one week later therefore represents a meaningful acceleration, even if it is still far below the flows seen in Bitcoin-focused products.

Whether the October 8 print marks the start of a sustained trend or a one-day spike will depend on broader market conditions and continued institutional interest in AVAX as an asset. Avalanche's underlying network continues to expand. Strong on-chain fundamentals combined with renewed ETF demand could set the stage for a more constructive October for $AVAX.

Sources:
SoSoValue: US AVAX Spot ETF Dashboard
CoinLaw: Avalanche (AVAX) Statistics 2026
The Defiant: VanEck Launches First U.S.-Listed Avalanche ETF

Shark Tank star and veteran investor Kevin O'Leary has publicly backed Avalanche, telling attendees at the 2026 Avalanche Summit in New York that he understands the merits of $AVAX and that major US companies are waking up to the advantages the network offers.

The official @Avax account shared a quote from @kevinolearytv following his appearance at the event, which took place September 16 and 17 at Chelsea Industrial in Manhattan. The endorsement arrived at a moment of notable momentum for the Avalanche ecosystem, with the summit drawing a heavyweight institutional crowd.

A Watershed Moment for Blockchain O'Leary's comments at the summit went beyond a simple vote of confidence in $AVAX. Speaking at the Avalanche Summit in New York, O'Leary said he is acquiring new cryptocurrency positions in anticipation of the next market cycle and is closely watching the adoption of blockchain technology by mainstream securities exchanges, calling that shift a significant "watershed moment" for the industry.

He highlighted that the key "watershed moment" for crypto will be when a major stock exchange formally adopts a blockchain, explicitly connecting this thesis to the Avalanche Summit. For O'Leary, Avalanche is already well placed to be that chain. He said the next phase of crypto investing lies in identifying which blockchains will achieve widespread adoption in specific sectors.

Institutional Weight Behind the Summit Avalanche Summit V returned September 16 to 17, 2026, to Chelsea Industrial in Manhattan, marking Avalanche's flagship annual gathering, organised by Ava Labs to bring together business and technology leaders driving the future of digital assets.

Confirmed speakers included Ava Labs CEO Emin Gun Sirer, alongside executives from major institutional names including BlackRock, Apollo, Franklin Templeton, and the NYSE, reflecting the event's push toward institutional blockchain adoption.

At Avalanche Summit New York, Ava Labs president Charley Cooper revealed that the New York Stock Exchange has spent roughly a year testing Avalanche's technology and working with Ava Labs on tokenization infrastructure. That disclosure added concrete weight to O'Leary's broader argument about institutional adoption accelerating.

Over two days in New York, Avalanche turned the stage into a live feed of institutional breaking news, covering topics from Ethena's Avalanche-exclusive neobank to South Korea committing its capital markets onchain, with asset managers from Janus Henderson to Goldman Sachs showing up with real allocations.

O'Leary's presence at the event, and the strength of his remarks, adds a prominent mainstream voice to a network that is increasingly positioning itself at the centre of the tokenized-assets conversation.

Sources:
KuCoin News: Kevin O'Leary Buys Crypto, Calls Blockchain Adoption a Watershed Moment
CoinMarketCap: Avalanche (AVAX) Surges 11% on Tokenization Momentum
Avalanche Summit New York: Official Event Page

Onchain credit on Avalanche just had its best quarter on record. Loan volume climbed 34% to $37.4 million in Q3 2026.

The numbers behind the record The headline stat is simple. Loan volume tied to onchain credit on Avalanche rose 34% quarter over quarter, landing at $37.4 million.

The credit growth didn’t happen in isolation. Tokenized US Treasuries on Avalanche reached $545 million by the end of Q3 2026, up 14% from the prior quarter. Treasury holdings have also grown fourfold so far this year.

The broader real-world asset (RWA) activity on Avalanche represented approximately $11.4 billion in asset value as of early October 2026.

Put those figures side by side and the scale difference stands out. The $37.4 million in loan volume is a small slice next to $545 million in tokenized Treasuries and roughly $11.4 billion in broader RWA value.

The deals feeding the machine First, Aave activated its V4 upgrade on Avalanche. The rollout is part of a multichain expansion that also introduced tokenized stocks as onchain collateral.

Letting tokenized stocks serve as collateral is a notable shift. It means equity exposure could, in principle, back a crypto-native loan, which widens the pool of assets borrowers can put to work.

Second, Grove Finance anchored Galaxy’s first tokenized collateralized loan obligation, or CLO, with a $50 million allocation on Avalanche. The Galaxy deal extends Grove’s earlier footprint on the network. Grove had previously deployed $250 million into RWAs on Avalanche.

Third, the ecosystem has also leaned on partnerships with Centrifuge, a protocol focused on bringing real-world credit onchain. These relationships have helped push structured credit products onto the network.

What this means for Avalanche and onchain credit For the Avalanche ecosystem, the clearest takeaway is momentum in a specific niche. A 34% quarterly jump in loan volume, alongside 14% growth in tokenized Treasuries, points to a network building depth in institutional finance.

Still, quarterly records from a relatively small base can look dramatic without signaling a lasting trend. One or two large deals can move the needle meaningfully when total volume is measured in tens of millions.

Concentration risk is another factor. A meaningful share of the activity traces back to a handful of institutional names, including Grove, Galaxy, Aave and Centrifuge.

Breakdowns of exactly where the loan volume came from have not yet been detailed by major crypto-native data sources.

Aave’s V4 expansion is multichain by design, so Avalanche is not the only network gaining these tools. Its edge will depend on whether institutions keep choosing it as the place to park, and lend against, tokenized assets.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The Avalanche ecosystem is showing signs of renewed life, with on-chain data pointing to a broad-based pickup in activity that goes well beyond the institutional narrative that has defined much of the chain's 2026 story.

DEX Volume Hits a Six-Month High According to data shared by @MSBIntel, $AVAX DEX volume reached approximately $1.13 billion over the past week, the highest weekly figure recorded on the chain since March. The surge comes as Avalanche's institutional credentials have continued to strengthen throughout 2026. That institutional foundation appears to be creating conditions that are now pulling retail traders back into the ecosystem as well.

The latest DEX volume spike is not entirely out of nowhere. Avalanche-native decentralized exchanges have been running hot in recent months. , according to earlier data from September. That backdrop of rising DeFi fee activity appears to have been building toward the current weekly volume milestone.

Coq Inu Leads the Memecoin Charge Alongside the DeFi volume story, the Avalanche memecoin space is showing renewed momentum. @coqinuavax, the chain's native hen-themed memecoin, is up 41% over the past month, according to data cited by @BSCNews.

The combination of record DEX volumes and a double-digit monthly gain for $COQ has prompted speculation about whether Avalanche is entering a full-blown meme season. Historically, spikes in DEX activity on a given chain tend to precede broader retail participation, including in higher-risk, community-driven tokens. Whether that dynamic plays out here remains to be seen, but the on-chain data is at least pointing in that direction.

As always, memecoins carry significant risk. Coq Inu's own creators have previously noted the token carries no intrinsic value. Traders should approach any short-term momentum with appropriate caution.

Sources:
Avalanche DEX fees analysis, September 2026 (Cryptonomist)
Avalanche latest updates and RWA inflows (CoinMarketCap)
Avalanche AVAX statistics 2026 (CoinLaw)

Avalanche (AVAX) advanced nearly 5% in the past 24 hours, outpacing most major cryptocurrencies as a wave of institutional interest continues to reshape market perceptions around its real-world asset (RWA) capabilities.

Institutional adoption and trading metricsAVAX hovered near $11.45, supported by over $560 million in daily trading volume and a market capitalization approaching $5.1 billion. This growth follows a sharp recovery from the lows seen in September, largely fueled by renewed momentum for Avalanche as a preferred platform for tokenized funds, securities, and institutional settlement solutions.

While the latest surge is not tied to a singular headline event, the token’s rally extends a broader trend seen over recent weeks, driven by a series of high-profile institutional developments.

Goldman Sachs-linked fund access boosts narrativeOne of the most significant catalysts has been the integration of Goldman Sachs’ Financial Square Treasury Instruments Fund onto Lynq, an institutional settlement network built on Avalanche technology. Through Lynq, qualifying institutional participants can seamlessly move funds in and out of the Goldman Sachs offering while leveraging Avalanche’s settlement layer, enhancing the network’s presence within traditional finance circles.

Despite the fund itself not being fully tokenized, this arrangement represents a step forward in merging conventional finance with blockchain infrastructure. The development aligns with a broader trend that sees more funds, stocks, and other financial products transition onto blockchain rails, reinforcing Avalanche’s position in this space.

Mini dictionary: Lynq, an institutional settlement network, enables seamless transfer and settlement of assets for financial institutions by leveraging Avalanche’s blockchain technology. It is designed to provide secure, fast, and transparent access to financial products within a decentralized environment.

Access to Avalanche itself has widened in other ways. Earlier this year, investment manager VanEck launched the first US-listed spot Avalanche ETF, providing institutional and retail investors more straightforward market exposure. Additionally, Avalanche Treasury emerged as another public-market vehicle designed to facilitate investment into the broader AVAX ecosystem.

Product/FeatureDescriptionDate IntroducedLynq (with Goldman Sachs Fund)Institutional settlement gateway, access to Treasury Instruments FundRecent (2024)VanEck Avalanche ETFFirst US-listed spot AVAX ETFEarly 2024Avalanche TreasuryPublic market exposure vehicle for AVAX2024Helicon UpgradeMainnet protocol upgrades for speed and efficiencySeptember and October 2024Network upgrades and future positioningAvalanche underwent a major technical milestone with the activation of the Helicon upgrade on its mainnet on September 22. The upgrade introduced continuous execution, changes to validator staking requirements, and an updated, more flexible gas-fee structure. A subsequent update, Helicon.1, was rolled out on October 1 to further enhance the network’s snapshot performance and efficiency.

Network improvements play a critical role for Avalanche as it competes to serve as infrastructure for high-speed, low-cost financial applications.

The platform’s appeal for institutions is underscored by previous fund inflows, including a notable $675 million Avalanche Treasury transaction designed to strengthen its presence as an institutional-grade blockchain solution.

Avalanche’s increasing integration with institutional finance and ongoing technical upgrades are reinforcing its role as a key blockchain infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets.

South Korea is on the news again as it moves its tokenization plans from pilot products toward regulated securities markets. In the light of this, a new framework is in place set to start on the 4th of February 2027.

The shift allows the use of blockchain technology to issue and circulate stocks, bonds, and other fund offerings. As such, it adds many more types of financial instruments that can be issued via a blockchain.

Moreover, the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) will serve as the central anchor point to connect the traditional financial system to distributed ledger technology. Avalanche [AVAX] may have an opportunity to benefit from this.

This is because KSD is already working to establish a connection to Avalanche’s decentralized network.

Source: X South Korea’s stock exchange exceeds $5 trillion. While the roll-out will begin with some specific asset classes, eventually the rest will follow.

Still, regulators will need time to verify the effectiveness of the infrastructure and the adequacy of investor protection mechanisms prior to allowing for full implementation.

Tokenized stocks gain ground on Avalanche Meanwhile, Avalanche has already shown strong interest in tokenized stocks, with significant trading volume before South Korea’s framework goes live. In September alone, the altcoin’s tokenized stock market cap grew by $245.5 million.

This was the largest single contributor across all other blockchain systems.

Precisely, most of this growth came from Securitize, which provided institutional support to the expansion. Furthermore, the last week of September saw over $131.2 million in tokenized stock inflows on Avalanche.

Source: Avalanche This demonstrates that investors are actually buying tokenized stocks and not just raising awareness. As such, it provides a real-world model of what can happen when tokenized equities have a regulatory framework in place in South Korea.

Furthermore, given KSD’s plans for connecting blockchains in South Korea, the potential exists for Avalanche to attract some portion of institutional investment related to these new listings.

Can South Korea accelerate institutional tokenization? South Korea’s institutional momentum is transitioning from that of creating physical infrastructure to that of creating the first customers for tokenized security.

In February, the initial focus of the rollout will be on directing private money market fund (MMF) and corporate bond issuances to institutional investors.

In this way, banks and asset managers will have the ability to conduct testing of the entire lifecycle of issuing, owning, and settling tokenized securities within a controlled environment. Notably, twelve brokerages have signed on to join the KoSTO platform.

Meanwhile, KB Securities is integrating the Securitize and Optimism [OP] platforms into its existing relationship with institutional investors.

If institutions begin holding and transferring these assets, tokenization could gain a stronger market base. That would also accelerate Korea’s integration with global on-chain capital markets.

Final Summary Avalanche gains tokenized-stock momentum as September growth strengthens its institutional appeal. AVAX could benefit as South Korea expands regulated tokenization and institutional on-chain adoption.

Avalanche has entered October with signs of strengthening fundamentals, supported by increasing tokenized stock activity on its blockchain and a stable price structure above major support levels.

Tokenized Stock Activity Fuels Avalanche’s GrowthAvalanche revealed on X that new tokenized stock listings pushed its total tokenized stock market capitalization up by $245.5 million during September. This figure placed Avalanche ahead of all other blockchains in terms of tokenized stock growth for the month.

Avalanche stated, “Avalanche added the most tokenized stock market cap of all chains in September at +$245.5M”.

This surge comes as Securitize, a leading platform for issuing and managing tokenized equities, led much of the added capitalization. Growing interest in tokenized stocks provides a significant boost to Avalanche’s fundamentals and attracts further attention from both retail and institutional participants. Sustained tokenization activity has helped AVAX preserve the recovery momentum that began at the end of September.

Mini dictionary: Securitize, a platform specializing in the creation, issuance, and management of tokenized securities and equity products, enables traditional financial assets such as stocks to be issued and traded on blockchain networks.

AVAX Price Performance and Key Technical LevelsAs of the latest data, AVAX is trading at $10.798, down 1.75% over the past 24 hours. Despite this minor decline, the token remains above the critical $9.549 level on its price chart, maintaining the broader recovery structure. Technical analysis shows that AVAX is currently positioned above its 20-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) of $10.036, and it also trades above the 50-, 100-, and 200-day EMAs at $8.798, $8.205, and $8.882, respectively.

The continued alignment above these moving averages suggests that medium-term sentiment remains positive. If AVAX falls below $9.549, that area is expected to act as the first support to monitor.

EMA PeriodPriceStatus20-day EMA$10.036Above50-day EMA$8.798Above100-day EMA$8.205Above200-day EMA$8.882AboveSupport Level$9.549Key WatchDerivative Trends and On-chain MetricsTradingView data shows AVAX recently broke above the $9.549 resistance and consolidated near $11. The On-Balance Volume metric climbed to 352.14 million, signaling increasing accumulation alongside price gains. Meanwhile, CoinGlass reported that Avalanche’s open interest in derivatives markets was approaching $430 million, with trading volume spiking significantly throughout late September.

On-chain data indicates that a sustained move above the $11–$12 range could provide further confirmation of AVAX’s recovery trend, while a drop below $9.549 would challenge the setup’s strength.

The platform DeFiLlama showed Avalanche’s total value locked (TVL) close to $650 million at the end of September, with active addresses and transaction activity also tracking higher. These combined on-chain signals reinforce the connection between Avalanche’s price action and increased network utilization.

Key Factors for Traders to MonitorFor further bullish confirmation, technical analysts are watching for AVAX to break and hold above the $11 to $12 resistance zone. Maintaining levels above $10.036 is considered important in upholding positive momentum, while a fall under $9.549 could prompt a reassessment of the recovery structure and shift attention to a support cluster between $8.205 and $8.882.

Despite optimism around the network’s tokenized stock activity, future momentum will depend on price trends, derivatives positioning, and overall sentiment. Crypto markets remain highly volatile, so market participants are advised to track fluctuations closely and remain cautious of potential shifts in trend.

Avalanche (@avax) has rolled out one of the most significant performance upgrades in its history. Since the Helicon upgrade activated on mainnet on September 22, the network's C-Chain now verifies blocks in roughly 2 milliseconds, down from approximately 210 milliseconds before the release. That is a roughly 100-fold improvement in block verification speed.

What Continuous Execution Actually Does The speed gain comes from a mechanism called Continuous Execution, introduced under community proposal ACP-194. The result is that the two processes no longer block each other, freeing up significant throughput headroom.

There is one practical nuance for developers to note:

Staking Rules Get a Significant Overhaul Helicon also rewrites validator economics.

The looser entry conditions come paired with a tighter performance requirement. Helicon also introduces a dynamic minimum gas price, replacing the network's previously fixed fee floor with a stake-weighted median set by validators.

Sources:
Avalanche Developer Blog: Helicon Upgrade Overview
Crypto Briefing: Avalanche activates Helicon upgrade, claims up to 100x faster block verification
Crypto Briefing: Avalanche activates Helicon upgrade, enhancing staking and execution

Avalanche Treasury Corp (NASDAQ: AVAT) has offloaded a portion of its locked $AVAX holdings back to the Avalanche Foundation, raising $15 million in the process and signalling a measured shift in how the company manages its balance sheet.

The Transaction at a Glance

By disposing of its furthest-maturity holdings first, the company has effectively shortened the overall lock-up profile of its remaining position.

What the Proceeds Are For The move reflects a broader effort to manage leverage while keeping the company operationally funded.

The deal was disclosed through a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, giving the transaction formal regulatory visibility. Avalanche Treasury's exclusive relationship with the Avalanche Foundation has been a defining feature of its structure since its formation.

The September 23 sale does not represent a full exit from $AVAX. Rather, it trims the tail end of the company's lock-up schedule and frees up capital at a time when many crypto treasury vehicles are facing pressure to demonstrate financial discipline alongside their token holdings.

Sources:
Investing.com: Avalanche Treasury completes $15 million AVAX token sale to Avalanche Foundation
SEC Filing: Avalanche Treasury Corporation 10-Q (June 30, 2026)

Goldman Sachs is plugging its roughly $100 billion FTIXX Treasury fund into the crypto world, but not in the way you might expect. Instead of tokenizing the fund (the approach favored by rivals like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton), Goldman is distributing it through Lynq, a real-time settlement network built on a private, permissioned Avalanche Layer 1 blockchain.

How the plumbing works Lynq isn’t turning Goldman’s Treasury fund into a token. FTIXX remains a conventional money-market product, subject to the same regulatory framework it always has been. What Lynq provides is a new distribution rail, one that lets crypto-native trading firms access the fund through blockchain-based settlement rather than legacy financial pipes.

Transactions on the platform are processed through tZERO Securities, an SEC-registered broker-dealer. Clients need to pass eligibility checks and maintain a relationship with tZERO to gain access. For now, the offering is limited to eligible US clients.

Lynq’s growing client roster Lynq has already onboarded more than 30 institutional clients. The roster reads like a who’s who of crypto market infrastructure: B2C2, Wintermute, Galaxy, FalconX, Crypto.com, and Fireblocks are all on the platform.

Collectively, these firms hold more than $89 million in assets on Lynq. The Goldman fund is actually the first external product available on Lynq, which previously offered only a single investment product.

For trading firms, the value proposition is straightforward. Cash sitting idle between trades earns nothing. Parking it in a Treasury fund through Lynq lets that cash generate yield in near-real-time, without requiring firms to wire money out to a traditional brokerage account, wait for settlement, and wire it back when they need liquidity again.

The broader race for institutional yield rails BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, which tokenizes Treasury exposure on Ethereum, has become one of the most visible examples of traditional finance embracing blockchain infrastructure. Franklin Templeton has pursued a similar path with its own on-chain money-market fund.

What separates Goldman’s approach is its deliberate avoidance of tokenization. By keeping FTIXX in its existing legal and regulatory structure, Goldman sidesteps a host of questions about token classification, custody standards for digital assets, and cross-jurisdictional regulatory treatment. The trade-off is that FTIXX shares can’t move freely across DeFi protocols or serve as collateral in the way that tokenized fund shares theoretically can.

Lynq was established through a collaborative effort among Arca Labs, Tassat Group, and tZERO, officially launched in July 2025 following an 18-month development phase. Lynq migrated in April 2026 to a permissioned Layer 1 infrastructure on Avalanche for better control over validators, configuration, privacy, and performance.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Tassat Group’s Lynq settlement network completed its migration to a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 on April 29, 2026, delivering faster transaction finality and tighter validator governance for its growing roster of institutional clients. The upgrade represents the second major phase in Lynq’s rollout, following a commercial launch in July 2025 that attracted more than 30 institutional partners to the platform.

The move wasn’t a rebuild from scratch. Lynq maintained full state continuity during the transition, meaning no disruption to ongoing operations. For a network that has historically processed more than $2.5 trillion in transactions, that kind of seamless cutover is the difference between a headline and a disaster.

What the dedicated L1 actually changes Running on a dedicated Avalanche L1 rather than a subnet or shared chain gives Lynq something institutional players care deeply about: control. The permissioned environment allows the network to manage its own validators and configure network parameters without being subject to the broader Avalanche mainnet’s governance decisions.

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The practical result is deterministic finality for transactions within seconds. In traditional finance, settlement can take anywhere from hours to days depending on the asset class and counterparty. Deterministic finality means a transaction is irreversibly settled the moment it’s confirmed, not probabilistically likely to stick around.

The partner roster and scale Lynq’s institutional partner list reads like a who’s who of crypto market infrastructure. B2C2, one of the largest crypto liquidity providers globally, is on board. So is Crypto.com, which has been aggressively expanding its institutional services. FalconX, the institutional prime brokerage, rounds out the headline names among the 30-plus partners.

The commercial launch in July 2025 came after an 18-month development period. The dedicated L1 migration on April 29, 2026 follows the same pattern, roughly nine months later.

Yield-in-Transit and TFND One of the more interesting features enabled by the Lynq architecture is something called Yield-in-Transit. Assets sitting in the settlement pipeline continue to accrue yield rather than sitting idle.

This is powered by TFND, a tokenized treasury product that generates yield every two seconds while keeping the underlying assets available for settlement.

Broader implications for institutional crypto infrastructure In June 2026, Lynq became a founding member of the Avalanche Payments Collective, signaling its intent to play a central role in shaping how payment infrastructure develops across the Avalanche ecosystem.

The competitive landscape for institutional settlement is heating up. Once an institution integrates with a settlement layer, switching costs are high. The 30-plus partners already committed to Lynq create a network effect that gets harder to replicate with each new addition.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Avalanche’s AVAX fell more than 8%, giving back part of its recent rally one day after the network activated its Helicon upgrade.

The timing does not mean that the upgrade is responsible for the decline. Instead, what the chart suggests is that traders took profits after AVAX saw some positive trends and approached a major resistance area.

Helicon changes how Avalanche operates Helicon Upgrade was launched in Avalanche mainnet on September 22. It brought six changes in network performance, staking, and transaction fees.

Avalanche’s validators can now automatically renew their stake. Before now, after each stake ended, they had to redo the staking process.

Minimum staking duration has also been reduced from two weeks to 48 hours for its users, giving them a choice of how much time they can commit their AVAX.

Instead of validators receiving rewards for being up 80% of their chosen staking period, they now have to be constantly up 90% or higher. The reasoning behind the stricter rule is that it will increase the uptime reliability of the network.

Another change allows Avalanche to approve blocks whilst processing earlier transactions. What this means is that the network can now perform more work without waiting until one process has finished before moving on to the next.

In a change intended to provide predictable rewards for investors, Helicon will be gradually adjusting the staking reward formula over a period of 90 days. AVAX developers estimate such a change will slightly decrease AVAX inflation but will still reward long-term staking.

AVAX price retreats before $11.65 AVAX started trading near the $11.31 price level and reached the $11.40 price level before falling to about $10.36. Its lowest level of the day at the $10.11 price level places the psychological $10 level under immediate pressure.

The climb took place while the price was below $8, coming steeply upwards, which pushed a momentum indicator into overbought levels due to the speed in price appreciation. The momentum has since cooled down, but buyers are still in control.

Source: TradingView AVAX continues to float above its short-term and long-term trend leading levels. Trading at the $10 level, therefore, could leave space to have another shot at the $11.40 – $11.65 resistance levels.

Above this range, we could see the $13.50 level. Yet, should the $10 range fall, support will next be expected at the $9.50, $9.75 level. Following on again, and we could see the area of $8.70, $8.85 levels tested.

Final Summary Avalanche activated Helicon on September 22, changing rules and features. AVAX must defend the $10 level before it will be able to target another move towards the $11.65 price level.

AVAX posted a 55% weekly gain as attention around the Bitwise Avalanche ETF fueled renewed interest in the Layer 1 network. The ETF, trading under the ticker BAVA on NYSE Arca, represents the first regulated vehicle offering direct exposure to Avalanche tokens, and it comes with a twist: most of the fund’s holdings are actively staked to generate yield.

The early inflows have been modest by ETF standards, with the fund pulling in around $231K in one recorded period and seeing single-day peaks closer to $5 million. Assets under management for BAVA sat in the range of $18 million to $22 million shortly after launch. For context, AVAX was trading around $9.50 with a market cap of roughly $4.1 billion at the time the fund went live.

How the staking model works BAVA isn’t just a passive wrapper around AVAX tokens. Bitwise designed the fund to stake approximately 70% of its holdings through its Onchain Solutions division, targeting average staking rewards of about 5.4%.

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The sponsor fee comes in at 0.34%, which Bitwise is waiving for the first month on the initial $500 million in assets.

What’s driving the AVAX rally Avalanche has been building its case as an enterprise-grade blockchain for some time. The network claims throughput of up to 4,500 transactions per second, which puts it in the upper tier of Layer 1 networks. Its customizable architecture allows organizations to spin up dedicated subnets, essentially private blockchains that still connect to the broader Avalanche ecosystem.

That design has attracted partnerships with major organizations including Visa and FIFA, both of which have explored Avalanche for tokenized assets and payment infrastructure.

The bigger picture for crypto ETFs If the staking model proves successful and AUM grows, it could set a template for future crypto ETFs. Fund managers launching products around staking-enabled tokens like Solana, Polkadot, or Cosmos might look at BAVA’s structure as a blueprint.

For AVAX holders, the ETF represents a new source of structural demand. Every dollar flowing into BAVA translates to AVAX purchases on the open market, and 70% of those tokens get locked into staking contracts, reducing circulating supply. At current AUM levels of $18 million to $22 million, that mechanism is too small to move the needle significantly.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

TL;DR New York Life Investment Management is working with Centrifuge to tokenize a US high-yield corporate bond strategy. The product is being built on Avalanche with USDC subscriptions and redemptions. Access is restricted to qualified institutional buyers. New York Life Investment Management is taking one of its fixed-income strategies onchain through a partnership with Centrifuge.

The firms announced plans to tokenize a US high-yield corporate bond strategy on Avalanche, with qualified institutional buyers able to subscribe and redeem using USDC.

A Traditional Bond Strategy Gets Blockchain Rails The underlying idea is not to turn high-yield bonds into a retail crypto product.

Instead, Centrifuge is providing tokenization infrastructure around an institutional investment strategy managed by NYLIM, which oversees more than $300 billion in assets.

Using Avalanche gives the product a blockchain settlement and ownership layer, while USDC provides a digital-dollar mechanism for subscriptions and redemptions.

For institutions, that can simplify some of the operational movement between cash and fund interests, particularly in markets where tokenized products are being built to operate outside traditional settlement windows.

Institutional Access Remains Restricted The product is not being opened broadly to the public.

The announcement specifically frames access around qualified institutional buyers, which is an important limitation when evaluating how far the tokenization reaches.

What is significant is the type of asset moving onchain. Tokenized Treasury products have already become one of the clearest areas of institutional blockchain adoption. High-yield corporate bonds bring a different risk and return profile into the same infrastructure trend.

With NYLIM and Centrifuge, the tokenization story is moving further into actively managed credit strategies rather than remaining centered only on cash-like government debt.

The September 17 announcement therefore adds another established asset manager to the group testing how conventional investment products can be issued and serviced through public blockchain rails.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

Avalanche Treasury Co. CEO Bart Smith has warned that AI agents could strain Layer 1 block space as automated financial activity moves onchain and traditional markets adopt longer trading hours.

Summary

Smith said AI agents could challenge the assumption that blockchain capacity is effectively unlimited. Rising transaction demand could make technical differences among Avalanche, Solana and Ethereum more important. Smith expects traditional markets to trade around the clock, five days a week, by mid-2027. Avalanche Treasury gives U.S. investors exposure to the network through its Nasdaq-listed AVAT shares. AI agents could test available block space The Block reported from the New York Avalanche Summit that Smith expects autonomous agents to generate financial transactions on blockchains if their adoption reaches even the lower end of current market estimates.

AI agents can act on instructions, interact with software and complete tasks with limited human involvement. Applied to finance, such systems could place trades, move funds, settle payments or manage positions, with each onchain action competing for network capacity.

Smith argued that the resulting transaction load would challenge the common view that block space remains abundant. Existing networks can currently handle enough activity that many users do not need to consider how one Layer 1 processes transactions differently from another.

“As long as AI agent activities reach the lower end of market expectations, relevant activities will occur on the blockchain,” Smith said. “There is not enough block space, and block space is no longer infinite.”

Under Smith’s forecast, automated activity would not merely add more human users to blockchains. Software agents could operate continuously and make repeated transactions without following the working hours, sleep schedules, or manual approval processes that limit human activity.

Smith did not provide a transaction estimate or a date when demand could exceed available capacity. His claim rests on AI agents gaining enough use in financial markets to create sustained onchain activity rather than occasional tests.

L1 differences may become harder to ignore As transaction demand rises, Smith expects users and financial firms to pay closer attention to differences among Avalanche, Solana and Ethereum. Network design affects transaction speed, fees, finality, privacy options and the ability to create systems for specific business needs.

“Theoretically, there are many subtle differences between these L1s,” Smith said, adding that users can overlook many of them while capacity remains readily available. Under heavier demand, he said, “these differences will become important.”

Smith identified privacy and security as areas where he believes Avalanche is suited to business applications. The view aligns with the network’s use of separate Layer 1 environments, which organizations can configure for specific operational and compliance needs.

Recent deployments provide examples of the business activity Smith described. On Sep. 14, Avalanche was selected as the underlying blockchain for the UAEPASS Digital Vault, a document service within the United Arab Emirates’ national identity platform.

UAEPASS serves 12.5 million users and connects them with more than 15,000 services offered by over 350 public and private organizations. Deca4 and Ava Labs said the vault would use cryptographic records to verify that documents had not been altered without putting their personal contents directly onchain.

Such a design separates document verification from the sensitive data contained in the file. The UAE’s Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority oversees the service, Deca4 is handling local implementation, and Ava Labs is supplying Avalanche infrastructure and technical support.

Avalanche has also attracted financial firms working with tokenized assets. In September, Hanwha Investment & Securities completed a tokenized securities platform supporting Avalanche ahead of South Korea’s planned regulated security-token market.

According to Seoul Economic Daily, the platform is designed to manage issuance and distribution processes for tokenized securities. South Korea’s framework is scheduled to take effect in February 2027, giving financial firms a regulated route to represent qualifying securities on blockchain systems.

Round-the-clock markets would require new infrastructure Smith also expects traditional financial markets to move toward continuous weekday trading. By mid-2027, he said, markets could operate 24 hours a day for five days each week, extending access far beyond the sessions followed by most stock exchanges.

Existing financial systems would struggle to support that schedule, according to Smith, because much of the infrastructure depends on set operating hours and processes that were not designed for nonstop trading and settlement.

“New infrastructure must be created,” Smith said, adding that it would not be built using the old model “but rather built on the blockchain.”

Longer trading hours could require clearing, settlement, collateral management and risk systems to operate throughout the day. In Smith’s scenario, AI agents would add another layer of activity by making automated decisions while markets remain open across different time zones.

Avalanche’s recent institutional activity has already extended beyond test transactions. In July, the network’s distributed tokenized real-world asset value reached $2.1 billion after rising 60.47% over 30 days, according to RWA.xyz data cited in a crypto.news report on its $11 billion tokenization deal with Bridgetower.

Bridgetower said it had placed more than $11 billion in production-linked assets on Avalanche using Chainlink infrastructure. The portfolio included the Arizona Copper-Gold project, while BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized U.S. Treasury fund had passed $900 million on Avalanche at the time.

Franklin Templeton and VanEck have also used or announced plans involving Avalanche-based products. Smith’s forecast, however, concerns a later stage in which automated systems and continuously operating markets produce recurring transaction demand rather than isolated institutional deployments.

Nasdaq listing gives U.S. investors Avalanche exposure Smith leads Avalanche Treasury Co., a U.S.-listed company that began trading on Nasdaq under the AVAT ticker in June. The listing gives American investors a way to gain exposure to the Avalanche ecosystem without directly holding AVAX.

The company reached the public market through a merger with Mountain Lake Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company, in a transaction valued at about $675 million. At its Nasdaq debut, Avalanche Treasury held roughly 15 million AVAX, equal to about 3.5% of the token’s circulating supply at the time.

AVAT closed 38.13% lower at $1.85 in its first trading session after opening at $2.99. Trading volume reached about 497,580 shares, while the company’s market value stood near $486.37 million.

Smith said at the time that Avalanche Treasury planned to deploy capital across the network rather than operate only as a passive token holder. “It is not a bet on price,” he said, describing the business as an ecosystem investment vehicle.

The company’s structure still leaves its financial position exposed to AVAX price movements because of its token holdings. Its board and advisory group includes Ava Labs founder Emin Gün Sirer and Aave founder Stani Kulechov, while its backers include Dragonfly, ParaFi Capital, VanEck, Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, CoinFund, Kraken, FalconX and Borderless.

Before leading Avalanche Treasury, Smith worked at Susquehanna for nearly 14 years and held roles tied to institutional trading and digital assets. His comments at the summit connect that market background with a forecast in which continuous trading, automated financial agents, and blockchain settlement increase demand for Layer 1 capacity.

Regulated blockchain infrastructure firm Paxos added native AVAX to its Crypto Brokerage platform on July 15, 2026, bringing its total listed assets to 29. The move hands more than 650 institutions, including banks, broker-dealers, and fintech companies, a compliance-friendly on-ramp to Avalanche’s native token.

Paxos operates under an OCC national trust charter and holds licenses from Finland’s FIN-FSA and Singapore’s MAS, which puts it in a different category from most crypto-native custodians.

What the Paxos platform actually does Paxos’s Crypto Brokerage offering provides the trading and custody plumbing that financial institutions need to offer crypto services without building everything from scratch. PayPal and Nubank are among the platform’s existing clients, and through those partners, the infrastructure reaches hundreds of millions of end-users.

Institutions on the platform can now offer AVAX trading and custody alongside other supported assets. USDC is also accessible through the integration, giving institutional clients a stablecoin option alongside Avalanche’s native token.

Paxos already issues PYUSD, the stablecoin developed with PayPal, so stablecoin infrastructure is already baked into its operating model.

The Avalanche Payments Collective adds a second layer On June 18, 2026, Paxos became a founding member of the Avalanche Payments Collective, a group of 28 organizations assembled to build out payment infrastructure on the Avalanche network.

Franklin Templeton and VanEck are also founding members.

The collective is focused on four specific use cases: stablecoin issuance, real-time settlement, treasury management, and cross-border payments. Together, member organizations say they can support payment flows across more than 150 countries, covering 96 currencies and nearly 22 billion payout endpoints.

Why this matters for institutional crypto adoption Paxos’s position as both a Crypto Brokerage provider and a founding Payments Collective member puts it at the intersection of both arguments. Institutions that custody AVAX through Paxos’s brokerage infrastructure are also connected to an organization actively building payment utility on the same network.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

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Jules Miller, CEO of Iris (Iris)Summary

Latin American telecom operator VIVA is the first carrier live on Iris, an Avalanche-based network for transaction settlement and dollar-denominated operating reserves focused on telco companies.Iris, led by former IBM Blockchain partner Jules Miller, lets carriers plug existing identity, billing and distribution systems into financial services without replacing the infrastructure already running their businesses.The network is starting in emerging markets, where mobile operators often play a much bigger role in consumers’ financial lives than they do in the U.S., John Nahas, Ava Labs’ cheif business officer said.Latin American telecom operator VIVA is putting part of its financial plumbing onchain through Iris, a new network that wants to help mobile carriers turn their customer relationships and distribution networks into payments and other financial services.

VIVA, which has operated in Bolivia for more than 25 years and recently expanded into Mexico, is the first carrier live on Iris. It is using USDi, the network’s dollar-backed stablecoin issued by stablecoin infrastructure firm Agora, to settle transactions and hold eligible operating reserves in dollars instead of local currency.

Iris is led by CEO Jules Miller, a former partner at IBM Blockchain Ventures who helped launch the company’s blockchain venture group.

“Iris is the financial network for telecom operators,” Miller told CoinDesk in an interview. Carriers, she explained, can plug their identity, billing and distribution systems into the network, activate different services and settle activity in U.S. dollars without replacing their core infrastructure.

“We've invested heavily in modernizing our network and bringing our customers into the digital economy,” VIVA CEO Ryan Alvarez said in a statement. “Iris lets us earn new revenue on that investment and grow into a platform, without replacing the systems our business already runs on.”Iris debuts with a $43 million commitment from Balesia Group, a family office with telecom businesses across the Americas. The broader bet is that carriers can capture more of the economics generated by infrastructure they have spent decades building.

Between 2012 and 2025, global mobile data traffic grew more than 50% annually while operator service revenue increased less than 1% per year, according to McKinsey figures cited by Iris.

Telecom operators bring something financial apps often spend heavily trying to build: customers, verified identities and distribution.

That can be particularly powerful in emerging markets.

“In the U.S. the operator is like one rail among many,” Ava Labs Chief Business Officer John Nahas told CoinDesk. In markets such as Bolivia, by contrast, “the mobile carrier is often the rail that people do everything on.”That is why Iris expects its initial expansion to focus on Latin America and potentially parts of Africa and Asia rather than the U.S., Nahas said.

VIVA offers an early test of whether that model can translate into better economics for carriers. Nahas said a super-app product used by VIVA helped reduce churn among prepaid mobile customers by 33% while increasing their lifetime value by 35%.

“When you start to see numbers like this, it just starts making a lot of sense,” he said, adding that Iris now needs more real-world case studies.

Stablecoins behind telecomsIris runs on a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1, giving the network control over its settlement, operating and compliance requirements. USDi serves as the settlement asset, while also giving VIVA the option to hold eligible operating reserves in dollars.

In VIVA’s case, using U.S. dollar stablecoin for settlements also means having the option to hold eligible operating reserves in U.S. dollars, which is particularly relevant in markets with volatile local currencies.

The deployment follows other corporate uses of Avalanche. South Korean trading giant POSCO recently brought trade receivables onto the network, while automaker Hyundai moved a stablecoin-based internal remittance system using U.S. dollar and USDT USDT$0.9994

between its U.S. and Mexico entities toward production readiness.

Ava Labs’ Nahas said the setup is part of a broader push to move established businesses onchain while keeping blockchain largely invisible to customers. A telecom account can effectively become a wallet, dollars can move as stablecoins and financial products can run in the background.

That approach fits Miller’s background in enterprise blockchain. She said she has long looked for “real businesses doing real things that actually need blockchain,” rather than projects built around issuing a token first and finding a business later.

Iris is now talking with additional telecom operators around the world as it looks to add more carriers and services to the network, she added.

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As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.

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Hyundai Card appears to be moving toward a much more ambitious phase of its blockchain strategy after successfully testing stablecoin-based corporate payments on Avalanche.

Heejung Nam, head of Payments and business development at Hyundai Card, stressed that Hyundai now has to demonstrate that the system can work beyond a relatively small proof of concept.

"We have to prove the entire operation model works at scale," Nam said, according to Avalanche. “What happens if we can scale up? Then the economic model works.”

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Hyundai is now focused on whether the infrastructure can handle the much larger transaction volumes and operational complexity required by Hyundai Motor Group.

Hyundai's seven-minute Avalanche transferHyundai Card announced in July that it had successfully completed a proof of concept involving a real cross-border payment between Hyundai Motor America and Hyundai Motor Mexico.

The transaction was relatively small (roughly $20,000). However, it was notable because Hyundai was moving actual corporate funds.

Hyundai Motor America first converted $20,000 into Tether's dollar-pegged USDT stablecoin. The USDT was then transferred to Hyundai Motor's Mexican operation over Avalanche. The stablecoin tokens were then converted into U.S. dollars.

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According to Hyundai Card, the complete process took an average of roughly seven minutes. Hyundai said a comparable transaction would normally require at least three to four hours with the help of traditional banking infrastructure. 

The project brought together Hyundai Card, Hyundai Motor, Tether, Avalanche, and blockchain payments infrastructure company Axiom.

According to an Avalanche executive, the experiment involved genuine intercompany settlement rather than a simulated blockchain transaction.

Large corporations have conducted blockchain proofs of concept for years, but many have stopped at simple demonstrations. 

The Avalanche pilot could evolve from an isolated blockchain experiment into infrastructure used for routine corporate treasury activity.

For now, Hyundai has not announced a group-wide deployment or provided a timeline for full commercialization.