Summit was the center of gravity for September, and everything else orbited it. Over two days in New York, Avalanche turned the stage into a live feed of institutional breaking news: Ethena’s Avalanche-exclusive neobank, South Korea committing its capital markets onchain, Hanwha’s tokenization platform, and UAE PASS serving 12 million people on national identity rails.
Asset managers from Janus Henderson to Goldman Sachs showed up with real allocations, Kevin O’Leary headlined, and the team closed it out calling it the most impactful Summit yet. Helicon also activated on mainnet during the same stretch, and Avalanche closed the month leading every chain in tokenized stock inflows and RWA growth.
Here’s everything that happened.
September’s biggest technical story was Helicon going live, alongside record-setting weeks for tokenized assets.
Avalanche Turns Six:
The Avalanche genesis block was minted six years ago this month. [Genesis]
Helicon Goes Live on Mainnet:
Helicon brought Continuous Execution for a faster C-Chain, auto-renewing staking, 48-hour minimum staking periods, and a new reward curve designed to reduce AVAX issuance. [Helicon]
Tokenized Assets Set New Records:
Avalanche pulled in $131.2 million in tokenized stock inflows over seven days, eight times the second-highest chain, while its RWA market cap grew $266 million over 30 days, more than the next two chains combined. [Stock Inflows] | [RWA Growth]
Team1 Expands Across New Chapters and Continents:
Team1 opened new ground this month: the UK held its first event outside London in Chesterfield, while Amsterdam and Sofia each hosted their first Connect. Thailand officially launched as a chapter following a six-university workshop tour.
Elsewhere, Türkiye ran its first AI agent workshop, Ghana held its Blockchain and AI workshop, and a 50-builder residency took place in Bursa. Korea and Brazil held Builder Connects, while LatAm met with 20+ builders at Bolivia’s EthereumBo Buildathon. Team1 also hosted a rooftop meetup with The Grotto in NYC during Summit week, alongside many other events across different continents.
Team1 Backs Builders and Brings Their Voice to Policymakers:
Team1 awarded a $5,000 Builder Mini Grant to Empowr, an onchain bounty platform, and Luke152 met with U.S. Senator Cornyn’s office in Austin to discuss the CLARITY Act, covering consumer protection and World Cup ticketing. [Empowr Grant] | [Policy Meeting]
Avalanche Audit Marketplace Goes Live:
The Avalanche Audit Marketplace launched on Builder Hub, letting one request reach every Ava Labs-vetted audit firm with private quotes and up to 75% of the cost covered. Fees are zero for both builders and auditors. [Audit Marketplace]
College Athletics Goes Onchain With Uptop:
Baylor, Memphis, Nevada, and Michigan launched fan rewards programs with Uptop this month, joining Penn State and LSU. [Baylor] | [Michigan]
Lake Bears and Salmon Arrive on The Grotto:
The Grotto’s Lake Bears and Salmon collections went live, adding to its growing world of onchain collectibles. [Grotto]
FIFA Collect Crosses One Million Users:
FIFA Collect CEO Francesco Abbate confirmed the platform has crossed 1 million users, remaining one of Avalanche’s largest consumer applications. [FIFA Collect]
Insomniac and Onchain Entertainment:
Festival brand Insomniac partnered with Avalanche and Rain on a new fan loyalty program. [Insomniac]
Agentic Commerce Still Has Room to Run:
Speaking at Summit, Blockchange’s Schmults argued the real use cases for AI agents moving and managing money haven’t even been discovered yet. [Agentic Commerce]
Summit week turned into a run of institutional breaking news, from neobanks to sovereign capital markets.
Ethena Launches a Neobank Exclusively on Avalanche:
Ethena Pay brings everyday banking onchain, letting users save, send, and spend USDe from their phones, building on Ethena’s footprint across Robinhood’s crypto earn product and BlackRock’s Aladdin platform. [Ethena Pay]
South Korea Moves Its Capital Markets Onchain:
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission and Korea Securities Depository are laying groundwork to bring stocks, bonds, and funds onchain via Avalanche. [South Korea]
Hanwha and a Won-Backed Stablecoin Join From Korea:
Hanwha Investment & Securities, part of the $200 billion conglomerate, is building a tokenization platform on Avalanche, while Korea’s first won-backed stablecoin, KRW1, is going global through Rain. [Hanwha] | [KRW1]
UAE Powers National Digital Identity With Avalanche:
UAE PASS, the country’s national digital ID system, uses Avalanche to serve more than 12 million citizens, residents, and visitors. [UAE PASS]
Goldman Sachs Brings a $100B Treasury Fund to Avalanche:
Goldman Sachs is bringing its flagship $100 billion Treasury fund to Avalanche through Lynq, a private permissioned L1 already used by 30-plus institutional firms.
Janus Henderson and New York Life Join Avalanche:
Janus Henderson, which manages $500 billion, became a validator on Avalanche, and New York Life brought its first tokenized fund onchain through Centrifuge. [Janus Henderson] | [NYLIM]
Aave Launches an RWA Lending Hub:
Aave’s new RWA Hub lets institutions borrow stablecoins against tokenized assets without selling their positions. Deposits on Aave V4 have since surpassed $30 million. [RWA Hub]
Paxos and NYSE Expand Institutional Access:
Paxos integrated Avalanche across infrastructure serving 650-plus institutions and $18 billion in assets under custody, while NYSE is evaluating Avalanche for a 24/7 trading platform in development. [Paxos] | [NYSE]
Pharaoh Expand Trading:
Pharaoh unveiled plans for 24/7 permissionless trading of tokenized U.S. stocks on its Avalanche-native exchange. [Pharaoh]
Hyundai Card Cuts Transfer Time by 96%:
Hyundai Card’s stablecoin pilot on Avalanche cut transfer time by more than 96%, and the company is now exploring how faster transfers can free up idle liquidity. [Hyundai]
More Institutions Build and Raise on Avalanche:
Wellington and Fasanara brought institutional credit strategies onchain via Midas, Iris raised $40 million for its ALVA app, and India’s Arya.ag partnered with Finternet on agricultural credit for farmers. [Midas] | [Iris]
Lynq Migrates With Zero Disruption:
Lynq moved institutional settlement to its Avalanche L1 and saw 65% faster processing, with Tassat leading the migration in under two hours. [Lynq]
COTI Brings Privacy-on-Demand to Avalanche:
COTI’s Privacy-on-Demand and Privacy Portal went live, giving businesses a way to keep confidential information private onchain. [COTI]
Bloxtel Brings Private 5G Onchain:
Bloxtel unveiled the AP 201, combining a private 5G stack and AI-powered network management into a single unit built on Avalanche. [Bloxtel]
Avalanche Summit NYC anchored the month, with sponsors, media partners, and thousands of attendees converging on New York.
Avalanche Summit NYC Draws a Historic Lineup:
Summit brought together sponsors including Anchorage, Paxos, and Zerohash, media partners The Block and The Rollup, headliner Kevin O’Leary, amongst others, closing out what the team called its most impactful Summit yet. [Summit Wrap]
Stani Kulechov on Why Aave Chose Avalanche:
Aave founder Stani Kulechov told Cami Russo that Avalanche has a strong community building on finance, calling onchain finance the whole point of the network. [Kulechov]
BlackRock’s Maxwell Stein on Markets That Never Close:
Maxwell Stein said blockchain gives “anybody with a wallet” the same institutional advantages. [Stein]
Ava Labs CEO on Blockchain’s Next Chapter:
Emin Gün Sirer said it’s time to take blockchains from a technological curiosity to something deeply embedded in business workflows. [CEO]
Bitwise Co-Founder Would Build on Avalanche:
Hunter Horsley said that if he were building a chain from scratch, it would “hell yeah” be on Avalanche. [Horsley]
September closed the gap between Avalanche’s institutional story and the numbers behind it: a neobank, a sovereign capital markets project, and a $100 billion Treasury fund all landed in the same month Helicon went live and tokenized stock inflows outpaced every other chain combined.
But perhaps more importantly, Summit set the pace for what comes next. If September was a month of proof, the months ahead are shaping up to be an exciting continuation of that momentum.
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