What is an Avalanche RPC Node?
Access the subnet-powered blockchain
An Avalanche RPC node provides applications with access to the C-Chain (Contract Chain), Avalanche's EVM-compatible blockchain featuring sub-second finality and high throughput. Avalanche's unique architecture combines a primary network with customizable subnets, enabling unlimited scalability while maintaining decentralization.
Why Avalanche stands out
Avalanche doesn't just offer another EVM chain — it pioneered a new consensus mechanism and introduced subnets, allowing anyone to create customized blockchains with their own rules while leveraging Avalanche's security. This architecture enables use cases from DeFi to gaming to enterprise applications, all coexisting on one platform.
Avalanche advantages:
- Sub-2s finality — near-instant transaction confirmation
- High throughput — 4,500+ TPS on C-Chain
- Subnets — customizable blockchains for any use case
- Avalanche Consensus — innovative DAG-based protocol
- EVM compatible — full Solidity support on C-Chain
- Strong DeFi — $1B+ TVL with major protocols
Avalanche consensus explained
Avalanche uses a novel consensus mechanism where validators repeatedly sample small random subsets of validators to determine transaction acceptance. Through metastable decision-making, the network reaches consensus with sub-second finality while maintaining high decentralization and energy efficiency.
This approach differs from both Proof of Work (slow, energy-intensive) and traditional BFT consensus (limited scalability), achieving the best of both worlds.
Avalanche architecture:
- Primary Network consists of three chains: X, P, and C
- C-Chain (Contract Chain) — EVM-compatible smart contracts
- X-Chain (Exchange Chain) — fast asset transfers
- P-Chain (Platform Chain) — staking and subnet coordination
- Subnets — customizable blockchains using Avalanche consensus
Subnets revolutionize scaling
Subnets are sovereign networks running on Avalanche, each with customizable rules, validators, and virtual machines. Projects can launch game-specific subnets, enterprise subnets with permissioned access, or specialized DeFi subnets — all benefiting from Avalanche's security and interoperability.
This approach enables unlimited horizontal scaling: as demand grows, new subnets can be created without impacting the primary network's performance.