Avalanche Cortina upgrade goes live on protocol’s testnet, AVAX price surges

Avalanche went live with its Cortina upgrade on Thursday, April 6, marking the readiness of a switch between the X-Chain and Snowman++ consensus. The transition was implemented to make the chain work with Avalanche Warp Messaging and would benefit X-Chain since it can seek support from different exchanges.

The development was executed by AvalancheGo, which had been lauded by the members, saying they wanted lower gas fees and faster execution, value additions that would come with the upgrade.

Cortina makes it easier for exchanges to support Avalanche’s X-Chain

With the Cortina Upgrade, it will be easier for exchanges to support Avalanche’s X-Chain, which the protocol uses to send and receive funds. The upgrade will also enable faster development, among other benefits, according to Avalanche.

The upgrade also marks Avalanche network’s transition to a single consensus engine expected to facilitate faster development and innovation with a wide range of applications or use cases. In principle, the migration reduces the size of the trusted computing base, making it easier to put more effort into research and development.

Another benefit brought by the Cortina upgrade entails Batched Delegator Rewards and increased gas limit for C-Chain. An increase in gas limit would help developers seeking to launch their decentralized applications (dApps) on the network. The increased gas limit will also boost the execution of complex transactions. 

Noteworthy, Cortina and Batched Delegator Rewards work hand in hand, with the latter first simplifying the reward distribution process for validators having large numbers of delegators. Afterwards, Cortina modifies how the delegation fee is distributed for validators at that stake, post-Cortina Activation.

Notably, this development will remain unaltered strictly for validators that have already staked their claim in the ecosystem.

Fee distribution via the Cortina upgrade occurs in two phases. Phase 1 is where the fee is batched during the validation period. Phase 2 is where the fee is distributed after users unstake.

AVAX price soars on the back of the Cortina upgrade

AVAX price has reacted positively to the Cortina upgrade, surging almost 2% in the last 24 hours, nearly 5% in the  week, and almost 10% in the last 30 days. This has catapulted Avalanche’s market capitalization by 2% to around $5.89 billion at the time of writing and solidified AVAX’s position at number 16 on CoinMarketCap’s list of digital assets by market cap.

AVAX/USDT 1-day chart

If the Cortina-related hype sustains long enough, AVAX price could increase further to break above the 200-day Exponential Moving Average. A decisive flip of this barricade into support could clear the path for more gains, potentially reaching the $19.74 resistance level before the weekend, an area last tested around mid-February. 

Besides the Cortina upgrade, AVAX community members are also hyped about the recent release of the “Evergreen Subnets.” 

The release has brought a series of tools designed for financial institutions, particularly the ones that require permissions and controls typically only found in private, enterprise blockchains. With Evergreen Subnets, institutions can account for company-specific and industry-wide considerations. This is through built-in features such as user and validator permissioning based on KYC/KYB standards and geofencing for jurisdictional requirements, among other regulatory considerations.