Avalanche and Gelato lead the transformation of enterprise blockchains: sovereign infrastructures for banks, governments, and fintech

Avalanche e Gelato have introduced a new solution blockchain-as-a-service designed for financial institutions, public entities, and companies that wish to create customizable, interoperable, and highly reliable blockchain networks. 

The system drastically simplifies the creation and management of new Layer-1 networks, serving as a strategic infrastructure to support the adoption of blockchain technology by institutional players.

Thanks to this innovation, sovereign, independent but interconnected blockchains are now accessible even to entities lacking advanced technical skills. A breakthrough that aims to bridge the gap between decentralized infrastructure and the needs of the enterprise world.

How the new blockchain infrastructure works: Gelato on Avalanche

The integration between Gelato, already a collaborator of global brands such as Kraken, Fox, and Animoca Brands, and Avalanche, one of the leading blockchains for TVL (over 1.1 billion dollars according to DefiLlama), has given rise to a scalable and modular solution.

This platform allows the rapid, economical, and customizable creation of new sovereign Layer-1 blockchains, designed for:

• – Fintech and banking institutions
• – Systems that require integration of KYC, AML, and local regulations
• – On-chain gaming platforms with dedicated scalability needs

With a plug-and-play approach similar to the cloud services offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), businesses can now launch, monitor, and update their blockchain without facing the usual technical complexity.

According to Luis Schliesske, founder of Gelato, the goal is to provide an infrastructure that removes the “technical hurdle” to the development of new blockchain networks in regulated environments:

“Launching a blockchain was, until today, a laborious and highly technical process. With our platform, we make it accessible, interoperable, and invisible to the end user — just like cloud infrastructure.” 

The proposed infrastructure offers tools for automatic scaling, modularity in the choice of blockchain components and updates without having to stop or migrate the entire system.

Technical characteristics: interoperability, composability, and economic flexibility

The technical strength of the project lies in the adoption of the Avalanche Subnet framework, now enhanced thanks to the availability via Gelato.

Among the main distinctive characteristics:

• – Total interoperability between subnets via the Avalanche Interchain Messaging (ICM) protocol
• – “Zero-AVAX” networks, which avoid staking the native token to operate
• – Dynamic commissions adjustable to respond to business logic
• – Automatically validated blocks with high reliability, leveraging advanced validation mechanisms

According to Martin Eckardt, Senior Director at Ava Labs:

“Every application can now operate on a sovereign blockchain, aligning technology with the operational, regulatory, and strategic needs of businesses.”

Despite the growing interest, many institutions have remained on the sidelines of the Web3 sector. According to Gelato, the main reason is the perception of instability of existing public networks and the lack of professional tools for network customization and governance.

Sovereign blockchains meet these needs because:

• – They can be directly controlled by the financial institution or company
• – They are compatible with the compliance standards required by local regulators
• – They offer manageable and predictable economic models
• – They allow vertical integration with existing infrastructures (e.g., databases, KYC systems, identity management)

Schliesske explains indeed: 

“Companies and governments will never build on platforms perceived as unstable or experimental,” explains “Reliability and security are fundamental requirements for adoption.”

Real cases: who is already using the infrastructure

The credibility of Gelato’s blockchain infrastructure is demonstrated by its adoption by brands such as:

• – ❙ Fox News — for NFT initiatives and digital content tokenization
• – ❙ eBay — for Web3 solutions related to e-commerce and collectibles
• – ❙ Animoca Brands — for gaming infrastructure in the metaverse

These implementations confirm that the platform is already scalable, secure, and compatible with the critical needs of large corporate groups.

We remind you that a sovereign blockchain is an independent network, with its own consensus rules and economic structure, but compatible with larger ecosystems. Its main characteristics are:

• – Autonomous governance
• – Possibility to configure modules (e.g. KYC, audit, digital identity)
• – Horizontal scalability
• – Interoperability with other blockchains thanks to bridges and cross-chain protocols

Although the approach is promising, some challenges remain to be considered. First of all, the regulation of blockchain varies from country to country: it remains to be seen how the Avalanche subnets will position themselves in different regulatory contexts

Finally, companies will need to adopt audit and monitoring practices constantly on decentralized infrastructures to maintain compliance