🚨Excited to share a new chapter: I’ve joined @AvaLabs as Senior Vice President of Growth to focus on shaping & amplifying @avax’s story. Avalanche is at a pivotal moment: -@Scaramucci fund is moving hundreds of millions on-chain -@DinariGlobal is launching tokenized U.S. equities -The California DMV @CA_DMV has digitized 42 million car titles on-chain to detect fraud and streamline transfers -@FIFAWorldCup is launching its own Avalanche based blockchain for fan ticketing/engagement My focus will be connecting the dots across Avalanche’s institutional and consumer ecosystem — ensuring founders, builders, institutions, and users all share in a cohesive story of growth and adoption. Forever grateful for my time at @solana, where I had the privilege of helping shape an ecosystem during a period of rapid expansion and working with some of the most talented founders, partners, and team in crypto. 💜 Onward. 🔺

I love Avalanche 🔺

👀

Banks and asset managers are asking a fair question: what can blockchain actually do for their customers? At this point, our industry should have a clear answer. I wrote for @AmerBanker about the shakeout underway as the industry matures

The @avax community does not slow down. $AVAX is up +55% over the past week and the Bitwise Avalanche ETF, $BAVA, just posted its second-highest weekly inflow of the past quarter at $231K. Investors want Avalanche.🔺

Avalanche is becoming infrastructure for governments on an international scale. There’s no better example than the UAE: Their national digital identity system, UAE PASS, is using Avalanche to serve 12M+ people.

This cycle the best coins are the ones people actually use the tech for.

AVAX is pulling in people who weren't posting about it last week. 1,448 accounts posted about Avalanche today, the most of any day in the past month, up from 903 yesterday, which was itself the prior high. Engagements hit about 2.7M, also a one-month high. Roughly triple a normal day this month.

5min read, pls read :) What Avalanche Summit was about and why it was / is important ? Avalanche Summit NYC 2026 was held on September 16–17, 2026 at Chelsea Industrial in New York (535 West 28th Street). After previous editions in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, and London, this was the first time the summit came to New York. Because of its proximity to Wall Street, the program was built around institutional finance, tokenization, and the onchain economy. There were two main themes: Onchain Finance (tokenized assets, institutional liquidity, regulated capital markets) and Consumer Applications (digital ownership, fan economies, entertainment, and consumer products). Who attendedThe institutional and ecosystem lineup was strong: 🔺Emin Gün Sirer (CEO, Ava Labs) — headline keynote on “crypto’s paradigm shift” and the future of Web3. 🔺Charley Cooper (President, Ava Labs) — made the most important comments on the NYSE/ICE relationship. 🔺Kevin O’Leary (Shark Tank, headline speaker) — fireside chat. He used the word “potential” for Avalanche and said he had started buying crypto again. 🔺Michael Blaugrund (ICE / NYSE Head of Strategic Initiatives) — appeared on stage with Charley Cooper. 🔺Institutional names: Maxwell Stein (BlackRock), Christine Moy (Apollo), Sandy Kaul (Franklin Templeton), Rob Krugman (Broadridge). 🔺DeFi / Web3: Stani Kulechov (Aave), Guy Young (Ethena), Haseeb Qureshi (Dragonfly). 🔺Other notable names: FIFA Collect, Live Nation, Sports Illustrated, Cleveland Cavaliers, Kalshi, Bitwise (Hunter Horsley), Avalanche Treasury CEO Bart Smith. There were also builder activations, networking, and consumer sessions spanning music, sports, and fan tokens. What was discussed and key events The central theme was institutional tokenization and traditional finance moving onchain. NYSE / ICE testing Avalanche Charley Cooper said NYSE had spent about a year testing Avalanche and studying how it could be integrated into its systems. The review covered not only the technology, but also the economic model and business requirements. Michael Blaugrund said ICE had been working closely with the Avalanche team and that “Avalanche checks a lot of those boxes.” No official selection has been announced; ICE said it is evaluating multiple chains. NYSE is planning a platform for tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs with 24/7 trading and onchain settlement. New York Life tokenized fund New York Life Investment Management, which manages $807 billion, announced it would bring its first tokenized fund (HYB — U.S. High Yield Corporate Bond Strategy) to Avalanche through Centrifuge. This was one of the most concrete institutional announcements of the summit. Other developments Aave is building an RWA lending market on Avalanche. Bart Smith (Avalanche Treasury) said AI agents could put serious pressure on blockspace and predicted traditional markets would move to 24/5 trading by mid-2027. Kevin O’Leary argued that a major stock exchange adopting blockchain would be a “watershed moment.” Tech and tokenomics The Avalanche Foundation presented an AVAX tokenomics framework and discussed value-capture mechanisms as staking rewards decline. Next steps 🔺Helicon upgrade: activates on mainnet on September 22, 2026 at 15:00 UTC. Minimum staking duration drops from 14 days to 48 hours, auto-renewal is added, validator uptime rises from 80% to 90%, and C-Chain gets Continuous Execution and a dynamic gas price. This is an important step for institutional use and liquidity management. 🔺A final chain selection for NYSE’s tokenized securities platform is still pending. 🔺More institutional RWAs and tokenized products are expected to come to Avalanche. 🔺Main-stage recordings are due about a month after the event. Impact on AVAX The summit — especially the NYSE testing news and the New York Life announcement — moved AVAX sharply. From around $7.50–$7.60 on September 18, it rose to $10.82–$11.40 on September 20, the highest level since January 2026. Weekly gains were roughly 40–50%. The headlines strengthened the institutional-interest and real-utility narrative. Helicon’s more flexible staking design was also received positively. In short, the summit was the clearest attempt yet to position Avalanche as infrastructure for institutional finance. NYSE has not made an official selection, but a year of testing and the constructive tone on stage created strong market momentum. Final Take Why i chose this photo ? Cause it represents both business and degen which i believe they are both important at web 3. Kevin wants to tokenize real world assets, real ones, like Avalanche is doing. Business part Kevin show off his multimillion chain :) Degen part So, better future hopefully on the way for @avax @AvaxTeam1 @Team1TUR

I have to put some bets down on chains that are gonna get adopted. I now know with certainty that ETH will not be the, in my view, the standard across all 11 sectors, primarily because a lot of people think it's too slow. They’re looking for much faster transactional speeds with variance of volumes. You can see that working on Solana and Avalanche. Avalanche has this multi-chain advantage which may be of interest to industry. There's a lot of interesting things going on so now all of us are gonna be forced to take on positions because we simply don't know. Investors make changes all the time. We're always rebalancing when the facts change.

More from our President, Charley Cooper’s sit down with Intercontinental Exchange/NYSE’s VP of strategic initiatives, Michael Blaugrund: “The Ava Labs team has been exemplary, more broadly, the talent level in this space is incredible”

You can’t pretend to care about mass adoption and the future of the global financial system and ignore one of the only chains that is actually onboarding real people and businesses at scale There is so much more to blockchain than just hyper financialized speculation

Summit was packed and filled with institutions and great people. Avalanche @avax is up +30% this week. And Bitwise Avalanche ETF $BAVA had its highest volume day of the quarter. Great event —

The silent killer is starting to move. avalanche-2:native a coin with real fundamentals. True institutional adoption, tokenization to the max, and an incredible team.

I always loved Avalanche

I like Avalanche

Boarded the plane and have many hours to reflect on @avax summit. Some initial thoughts before they close the door. Truly was an amazing event. Very well planned and executed by the entire team @__arielle__ thank you and everyone! @AvaxTeam1 absolutely crushed it as well. Truly appreciate everything they do across the globe. @cryptochimba @luke152 and everyone else, thank you! @joeycannoli9 @glabuz I can’t thank you enough for helping coordinate things before, during, and after the event. I look forward to continuing to work hard together to take @YourGrails to the next level. @vohvohh you have been an amazing advocate for everyone and I truly appreciate your help with the event and getting things lined up with Kevin O’Leary. Please let us meet him at the next one!! @vanyapestana merch game always on point! Although I missed out on the watch, everything looked amazing!! Somehow you manage to outdo the previous year everytime! @LHBCrypto true legend and hero in the space. I don’t think people appreciate how open and honest he is. One of the best founders in the space and just a damn good guy. @PharaohExchange is and will always be the premier DEX. @Wrathtank_avax you took Summit by storm. The event, the panel, and your presence was unmatched. Truly loved finally getting to meet you in person and I want to find ways to work closer together in the future. @gribbly_fire I’m sorry your cards lost value. I’ll make it up to you. Seriously though great to meet you as well. Legend for years and took too long to get to do that. @nobsfud Champion of the chain! Always great seeing you and if there is anything I can do to assist in anything you have cooking I shall support. We are ready for OP as well! @HodeyKo thank you for taking all those pictures throughout summit.! You have a great talent!! @MyStandard_Adam I am glad someone took my badge by accident as it gave us a chance to connect. Keep building, you are almost at the greatest part!! @Cryptoguy777 and @PolyPup I don’t know what else to say. Without you two there nothing would be possible. Thank you for putting up with all my messages and stress. @swandogs legend. Simply a legend. From the support to just chatting about everything in person and DMs. Thank you for all of it. @0xSmitty Rocking Avalore! We didn’t get the chance to play some poker but next time it will happen. Always good to see you. @kieksinjapan we didn’t get a chance to catch up. I had no voice left by the time I saw you but glad I did get to say hi! @TheDazzleNovak trying to tag you in this message is making my phone crawl since your name never matches. Lol. Seriously though thank you as well. You have always been a great friend in the space. You deserve all the good things coming your way. I know there are so many more people I want to tag and thank, but my phone is slowing down the more I add and running about 10 characters behind what I type. You all were amazing and I’m so glad to have connected and reconnected with so many great people. We are all headed back to our virtual business locations so I know we will all be in touch regularly but if I can ever help or take part in anything, I am just a DM away!

I’m one of four people to ever wear the Ohtani. @kevinolearytv was an absolute class act. It was an honor to host him at Avalanche Summit this year. 🔺

Many thanks to @__arielle__ and the team for an epic Summit!

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Avalanche Summit in New York this week! Two packed days with founders, investors, institutions, developers, partners, and friends from around the world, all in one place. What stood out to me most was the quality of the conversations and the amount of real work happening across this ecosystem. We’ve come a long way, and there’s a lot more ahead. Huge credit to our team for pulling off an incredible week. Until next time 🔺