# What is Avalanche

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Avalanche is an open and programmable smart contract platform for building DApps, with the fastest transaction speed (time-to-finality) of over 4,500 TPS. Thriving on its **high speed, low cost and properties of eco-friendliness**, Avalanche have the **maximum number of validators** among all the proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols available in the market.\
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With Avalanche, you can build fast and low-cost dapps, deploy blockchains — **both private and public** — that suit the exact needs of your application. AVAX is the native coin of Avalanche; and apart from paying the transaction fee, you can stake AVAX to secure the network. Furthermore — the requirement of hardware is minimal!
