A unique convergence of trends in high-fidelity blockchain gaming and serious corporate adoption has people asking if Avalanche (AVAX) has a realistic shot at a $500 price tag. The entire conversation hinges on the network’s standout feature, “Subnets,” which are essentially custom-built, private highways for developers.
As top-tier game studios and financial institutions build their projects on these dedicated blockchains, they’re creating distinct economies that all feed back into AVAX, potentially setting the stage for a dramatic revaluation.
Avalanche’s special sauce is its ability to sidestep the classic blockchain traffic jam. By letting projects run on their own parallel Subnets, it keeps the main network free and fast.
This design has turned Avalanche into a magnet for anyone building applications that can’t afford lag, which is why the gaming and enterprise worlds are paying close attention. The network’s vital signs are looking strong, with daily transactions jumping and well over $2 billion in value locked within its ecosystem in 2025.
Where big-budget games get their own blockchains!
Crypto gaming is finally outgrowing its simplistic origins and morphing into the kind of rich, immersive experiences that can compete with today’s blockbusters. Avalanche is positioning itself as the go-to foundation for this evolution. Subnets give game developers what they desperately need – Their own dedicated space to build without slowdowns, plus the freedom to manage their own transaction fees, a huge deal for attracting players who aren’t crypto natives.
Two projects, in particular, show what’s possible.
Shrapnel, a first-person shooter from a team of industry veterans, knew it needed a private lane for its intricate in-game economy, which is built around player-created content and NFTs. During a 27-day paid early access run in 2024, players dove in for over 3.7 million sessions and traded 384,000 items, a powerful hint of the activity to come when the game launches for free.
Meanwhile, the cyberpunk battle royale Off The Grid saw its “GUNZ” Subnet completely explode after an early release. Daily transactions leaped from average to a peak of 4.5 million, and active players ballooned from 112,000 to more than 506,000 a day. Their strategy of making NFTs an optional part of the game while launching on major consoles and PCs is a smart play to bring millions of traditional gamers into the fold.
Beyond gaming – Corporations build private worlds
Away from the buzz of virtual worlds, Avalanche Subnets are quietly becoming a preferred tool for businesses that need privacy, regulatory certainty, and stable costs.
Take SK Planet, the South Korean tech behemoth. They’re breathing new life into their giant OK Cashbag loyalty program by moving it to a custom Subnet called “UPTN.” The goal is to hook a younger generation with NFT memberships and digital collectibles, a move that has already boosted monthly app visits by 10.2% and reward point usage by 7.4%. On a completely different front, consulting giant Deloitte built its “Close As You Go” platform on a private Avalanche Subnet.
This system creates a clean, unchangeable ledger to help government agencies manage disaster relief funds, hoping to cut down on fraud and get money to people faster. These are just two examples of a bigger shift, with financial titans like J.P. Morgan and Citi also testing Avalanche for everything from tokenizing assets to settling foreign exchange trades.
How Subnet cuccess translates to AVAX’s price
Even though Subnets can use their own custom tokens for gas fees, their growth is cleverly designed to increase the value of AVAX.
The most important connection is that every person or group that wants to validate transactions on any Subnet must first validate the main Avalanche network. Doing so requires them to buy and lock up 2,000 AVAX. As more gaming and enterprise Subnets launch, they’ll need more validators, which will pull more AVAX out of the open market and put a squeeze on the available supply.
Source: AVAX/USD, TradingView
On top of that, all fees from the main Avalanche chains are burned, permanently destroying them. As all these Subnets communicate with each other and the main network, more fees get burned, making AVAX even scarcer.
Finally, AVAX remains the default currency for the whole system, the asset everyone uses for trading and liquidity. This creates a cycle – Successful Subnets increase demand for AVAX staking, which shrinks the supply and makes the whole network more secure and valuable.
A steep climb to $500…
Getting to $500 isn’t just wishful thinking; it’s a numbers game that requires staggering growth.
For AVAX to justify such a valuation, the network would have to hit some incredible milestones. Daily active users would need to jump from the recent high of around 46,000 to a sustained 2.5 to 3.5 million. The daily transaction count would have to rise from its current peaks to a steady 50 to 75 million.
The total value of assets locked in its DeFi protocols would also need to experience a monumental leap from today’s $2 billion to somewhere between $150 and $200 billion.
Source: DeFiLlama
Headwinds and horse races
This ambitious journey is filled with obstacles. The high 2,000 AVAX requirement for validators, while good for value, has sparked legitimate worries about the network becoming too centralized. There’s also a risk that if Subnets don’t talk to each other smoothly, the ecosystem could become a series of isolated islands instead of a connected continent.
And, the competition is brutal. Avalanche isn’t just up against Ethereum and its swarm of Layer-2 solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism. It’s also in a direct race with other platforms that offer similar “ecosystem-as-a-service” models. Like Polygon’s Supernets and the independent blockchains of the Cosmos network.
Making Subnets cheaper and more connected
Avalanche’s leadership is fully aware of these challenges and is making big moves to address them. The forthcoming Etna Upgrade is set to be a game-changer. It will effectively rebrand Subnets as their own sovereign “Layer 1s” and, most importantly, will likely drop the requirement for their validators to also secure the primary network. This change should dramatically lower the cost and complexity of launching a new custom blockchain. At the same time, tools like Avalanche Warp Messaging are being built to act as a secure communication bridge, ensuring all these chains can work together seamlessly.
In the end, Avalanche’s path to $500 is a bet on its Subnet strategy. The team is laying the pipes for the next wave of demanding gaming and corporate applications.
The question is whether making it incredibly easy for anyone to spin up their own high-speed blockchain will truly ignite an explosion of activity big enough to carry the entire ecosystem into a new era of value.