How to Run Avalanche Node and Explorer with NOWNodes

NOWNodes
5 min readDec 16, 2021

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AVAX node and explorer

Avalanche is a blockchain ecosystem that aims to become a global unified asset exchange platform. It allows businesses to easily deploy customizable smart contracts and blockchains for bonds, securities, NFT, P2P lending, and other financial products.

A unique Avalanche consensus is extremely fast, decentralized, scalable, and offers very low gas fees. The platform’s usability and wide number of use cases have helped it gain strong traction: the AVAX coin has surged from $3.6 to $91.5 during 2021, showing a 25X price increase. The asset has entered the Top 15 cryptocurrencies list on CoinMarketCap.

Avalanche is considered by many an inherent part of the future of DeFi and DApp ecosystems. If you want to jump on the bandwagon and start developing on Ava when the platform is still young, you will need to get access to an Avalanche node. NOWNodes offers stable connection via Avalanche API on advantageous terms. Continue reading to learn how to access an AVAX explorer and node.

What is Avalanche (AVAX) Network?

Avalanche is a blockchain ecosystem designed to serve several goals.

First, it allows for unified financial product exchange, thus forming an Internet of Assets. The modern financial markets are fragmented due to regulatory and geographical differences. Avalanche aims to become a global marketplace where it’s easy to deploy assets and trade financial products in a unified way. Here, you can exchange equities, commodities, and alternative assets in a legally compliant way. Any financial network can plug into the universal Avalanche marketplace.

Second, Avalanche is attempting to offer a better user experience than in networks like Ethereum. Ava eradicates centralization, improves functionality, efficiency, and programmability, making it a convenient tool for building DApps. The throughput of Avalanche is comparable with that of Visa and PayPal, while its speed and low transaction cost ensure the platform’s rising popularity.

Avalanche’s architecture allows fitting custom needs of unique financial products and DApps. In Ava, businesses can launch subnetworks, or subnets, and developers can quickly build tailor-made networks with a custom virtual machine. Avalanche is a plug-and-play infrastructure for launching new blockchains, smart contracts, and tokens.

Ava is a “platform of platforms” where insurance contracts, NFTs, P2P lending, income-sharing agreements, and other assets running on Ava subnets can interoperate thus connecting into one unified global financial marketplace.

How does the Avalanche blockchain work?

The internet of assets is possible thanks to the Avalanche consensus — the architecture that ensures high speed and scalability. In Ava, millions of market participants validate transactions, and its throughput reaches 6500 TPS. The payment finalization time is less than a second, and fees are extremely low.

The Avalanche protocol leverages 3 blockchains:

  • X-chain — the blockchain used for creating and exchanging AVAX and other tokens. The chain is easily programmable and is used by devs for new asset creation.
  • C-chain is used to deploy smart contracts and DApps. It’s EVM-compatible, so Ethereum devs can easily convert Eth-based applications to Avalanche. MetaMask wallet can be used in the C-chain.
  • P-chain coordinates validators and is used to create new subnets.

Avalanche consensus

The Ava blockchain runs on a unique Avalanche consensus. In other consensus mechanisms like Proof of Worf or Proof of Stake, only one network participant forms a block, while all others simply validate his or her work. In Avalanche, millions of nodes process and validate transactions simultaneously, which ensures a high level of decentralization without harming scalability.

Launching DApps on Avalanche

Anyone who wants to issue an asset on Ava can enjoy flexibility while digitizing any financial product. In Avalanche, you can enable private transactions, make your network permissioned or permissionless, customize your smart contract and conditions to comply with the requirements. The Ava network allows building with WASM and EVM.

AVAX Token

AVAX token is the native cryptocurrency of the Avalanche ecosystem. Users get rewards in AVAX and pay gas fees for sending transactions, minting assets, creating subnets, and staking. AVAX fees are burned, which creates deflationary pressure on the token and contributes to its price growth.

What’s the difference between Avalanche and Bitcoin nodes?

In Bitcoin, a full node can be run on any computer with free 380GB of disk space and at least 4GB of RAM. Such a node can validate blocks formed by miners but can’t process transactions itself.

An Avalanche node isn’t critically different in hardware requirements (200GB of disk space and a 16GB RAM), but participates in processing transactions and helps the network reach consensus. An Ava node can stake AVAX and earn rewards.

How to get access to an Avalanche node via API

If you want to build a DApp on Avalanche or create a wallet for Ava-based assets, you need a robust connection to an Avalanche node. It will help you deploy your smart contract and test the full functionality of your project.

It is possible to run an Ava node on your own — however, it will require you a lot of time and skills to set it up and maintain. NOWNodes helps you save money and time by linking you to an Avalanche node. We offer API connection with near-instant responses, high throughput and uptime rate.

To leverage such a connection, follow 3 simple steps:

  1. Get a free API key. Leave your email on our main page or contact us, we will get back to you as soon as possible.
  2. See our Docs for the library of requests that you can make to an Avalanche node. Choose the ones you need and paste your API key in the query.
  3. Now, you are all set to work with the Ava node! Start with 20,000 free requests daily or see our plans to pick the best one that fits you right away. Contact us to find the best solution and get the API key.

Bottom line

Avalanche is a rapidly growing blockchain ecosystem for trading financial tools such as securities, bonds, tokens, NFTs, and others. Any business can deploy their smart contract or asset on Avalanche to leverage high network throughout and decentralization. This can be you, too. With NOWNodes, you can enjoy a stable connection to the Avalanche network that will help you build the best service for your customers.

Feel free to contact us at any time, and we wish you a pleasant experience with Avalanche!

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