Avalanche's story began in May 2018, when a pseudonymous group calling itself “Team Rocket” published the Avalanche consensus algorithm whitepaper on IPFS. A month later, Emin Gün Sirer — a Turkish-American computer scientist and Cornell University associate professor, born in Istanbul in 1975 — led the formation of Ava Labs, together with two Cornell PhD candidates, Kevin Sekniqi and Maofan “Ted” Yin — effectively a Cornell University spin-off.
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Sirer had previously developed the Karma proof-of-work protocol, co-founded bloXroute Labs and the Kadena blockchain, and served as co-director of Cornell's Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3).
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March 2020: Ava Labs open-sources the Avalanche codebase.
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July 15, 2020: the first public token sale raises $42 million in under 5 hours.
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September 2020: public mainnet launch.
Avalanche*'*s key technical differentiator is its own consensus protocol, which combines the strengths of classical and Nakamoto consensus to achieve sub-second finality. It is Solidity-compatible (EVM) and enables custom “subnets” — the basis for its institutional/enterprise customizability.