The price of Avalanche’s native $AVAX token has jumped over 9% to test the $20 mark after the Avalanche Bridge, which was launched last August to enable fast and secure transfers of Ethereum-based tokens to the Avalanche network, added Bitcoin ($BTC) support.
According to a blog post, native Bitcoin can now be bridged onto Avalanche through the Avalanche Bridge, in a move that “aims to unlock over half a trillion dollars of value on the Bitcoin network for use within the Avalanche DeFi ecosystem, and further expand the set of offerings available on Avalanche.
The post adds:
This enables Bitcoin holders to directly access extensive earning and yield opportunities on top DeFi protocols, while still maintaining BTC on their portfolio.
The BTC bridging functionality is only available through Avalanche’s Core Browser Extension and not through other wallets including MetaMask, as the Core Wallet was “custom-built to support Bitcoin and the Avalanche Bridge and to handle the technical problems of linking Bitcoin and EVM chains within a wallet. “
As CryptoGlobe reported, the Avalanche Bridge added the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Shiba Inu ($SHIB) late last year, further boosting the connection between Avalanche and Ethereum.
Last year, search interest for Avalanche (AVAX) exploded after the price of the cryptocurrency exploded by over 2,900% before enduring a significant correction. Avalanche, according to its developer documentation, is an open-source platform for “launching decentralized applications and enterprise blockchain deployments in one interoperable, highly scalable ecosystem.
The cryptocurrency is now trading at $19.5, down from a near $150 all-time high seen late last year. It’s up over 9% in the past 24 hours after adding BTC support on its Avalanche Bridge. Year-to-date, AVAX is down over 80%.
Avalanche is the first decentralized smart contracts platform built for the scale of global finance, with near-instant transaction finality. Ethereum developers can quickly build on Avalanche as Solidity works out-of-the-box.”
Avalanche’s documentation notes that a key difference between it and other smart contract networks is the consensus protocol it uses. It adds the Avalanche protocol “employs a novel approach to consensus to achieve its strong safety guarantees, quick finality, and high-throughput without compromising decentralization.
AVAX is the network’s native token. It’s used to pay for fees on the Avalanche blockchain and can be staked to earn yield. Shiba Inu has been meanwhile seeing its adoption explode.
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