To resist Sybil attacks, a decentralized network must require that influence over the network is paid for with a scarce resource so that it is prohibitively expensive for an attacker to gain enough influence over the network to compromise its security. In proof-of-work systems, the scarce resource is computing power. On Avalanche®, the scarce resource is the native token, AVAX.

If a node wishes to validate for any blockchain, it must stake AVAX. To stake is to lock up some AVAX tokens, making them temporarily untransferable.

For any additional questions, please view our other knowledge base articles or contact a support team member via the chat button. Examples are for illustrative purposes only.