The Avalanche proof-of-concept method is now officially running on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) mainnet and it is said to have a transaction speed ten times faster than Ethereum. A Bchd developer, Chris Pacia, announced the launch of the protocol in a tweet on Thursday, February 7.

Ok avalanche proof of concept officially running on mainnet. https://t.co/tRqmCf4ifZ Spec here: https://t.co/2KMZwTubxa — Chris Pacia (@ChrisPacia) February 8, 2019

Bchd is a full node implementation running on the Bitcoin Cash network and supports the bip157/158 node. Bchd allows developers to build a new type of P2P SPV wallet that uses client-side filtering to provide SPV users with unmatched privacy.

Over the past few weeks, the Bitcoin Cash developers and community members have been discussing the Avalanche protocol. The Avalanche proof-of-concept is a consensus algorithm that adds Byzantine fault-tolerant proofs to a blockchain network. When present in a blockchain, the Byzantine-fault-tolerant proofs enable nodes to differentiate between two conflicting transactions. Avalanche communicates with nodes in real time to make consensus more efficient. The protocol achieves this by asking the nodes to reach a pre-consensus on which of the two conflicting transactions are preferred.

The Avalanche protocol is being used in a proof-of-stake (PoS) project designed by Cornell Professor Emin Gün Sirer. However, its function on the BCH chain is for pre-consensus, and it operates parallel with the original proof-of-work consensus mechanism.

According to the Bchd version of Avalanche Github repository, the protocol “is not intended to be a final spec and is likely not compatible with the implementation being developed by Bitcoin ABC.” At the moment, the primary aim of the protocol is to give other developers something tangible to explore and discuss.

Avalanche achieves irreversible transactions in seconds

The Bchd developers published an Avalanche transaction explorer which shows that BCH transactions were processed in less than 3 seconds. This implies that the transactions listed on the Avalanche explorer reached a point where they can no longer be reversed by double spending, even though miners have not confirmed the transactions.

The Avalanche blockchain explorer explained that “if used this way, it would give Bitcoin Cash the equivalent of nearly instantaneous confirmations while improving mempool synchronization and reducing the financial incentive to 51% attack.” However, to take this from proof-of-concept to an actual consensus rule, the developers will be required to carry out a lot of testing, experimentation, data collection, code review, and soft fork activation rules.

BCH community excited by Avalanche’s speed

The BCH community is excited by Avalanche’s transaction speeds. A BCH supporter compared Avalanche’s transaction speed with that of Ethereum in a tweet.

Transaction finalized in 1.559723305s. That's 10x faster than ETH. Serious game changer.https://t.co/75Hq6CWLE3#BitcoinCash — Gabriel Cardona (@cgcardona) February 8, 2019

The Avalanche protocol has other benefits aside from merely an increase in transaction speed. In a Medium post last year, a Bitcoin ABC developer, Mengerian, pointed out that the Avalanche protocol provides a suitable mechanism for post-consensus defense against blockchain reorganization attacks.

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