Introduction to VM Customization

For some use cases, it may be necessary to use a customized VM instead of the EVM. This is the case if an application cannot be built on a regular EVM on the C-Chain, or if it would result in transaction fee costs too high to be economical for its users or creators.

Depending on a builder's needs, Avalanche allows for different VM customizations:

Customizing the EVM on the Ethereum network is difficult, requiring a wide consensus that the proposed change is mutually beneficial for all network participants. This can make customizations for unique use cases challenging, if not impossible. Additionally, Ethereum doesn't give users the option to add different chains.

In Avalanche, every Avalanche L1 has autonomy over their Virtual Machines. Their creators can customize VMs to fit their unique requirements. This is one of the biggest advantages of multi-chain systems.

In this section, we will see the three way to customize Virtual Machines at a high level. In later courses, we will dive deeper and learn how to actually customize each.