AVA Labs has its roots in Cornell University, where its co-founder Emin Gün Sirer had been teaching for almost two decades. In 2003, he started Karma, the first cryptocurrency to use a Proof-of-Work mechanism. 

Internet of value

AVA co-founder Kevin Sekniqi told Cointelegraph that the best way to describe the new protocol is the "internet of blockchains". 

One of the key features of this "empty framework" is that virtually any blockchain network can become interoperable with AVA. For instance, there is a fork of Ethereum running on the AVA engine called Athereum, which, according to Sekniqi, achieves most of the goals of Ethereum 2.0. Nonetheless, Sekniqi admits that it is unlikely that the Ethereum team will accept Athereum as Ethereum 2.0.