Avalanche Helicon upgrade goes live on mainnet

September 25, 2026

Avalanche's Helicon network upgrade is now live on mainnet, activated via AvalancheGo v1.15.0 at 11 AM ET on September 22 after validators and node operators upgraded clients ahead of activation. The upgrade bundles six Avalanche Community Proposals (ACPs) into one release, delivering Continuous Execution for a faster C-Chain, auto-renewing staking, and 48-hour minimum staking periods in place of 14-day lockups, alongside a higher validator uptime requirement.

With Helicon live, validators can now vote to raise or lower the minimum gas fee dynamically — @frostLedger highlighted the new fee-voting mechanism and called the impact of the six ACPs on mainnet "the real story."
Avalanche's John Nahas said the staking changes remove a "huge barrier" for regulated institutions, opening the network to institutional validators who previously couldn't commit capital for weeks at a time.
A recalibrated reward curve (ACP-285, phased in over 90 days) is designed to reduce AVAX issuance by an estimated 0.5–1 percentage point.
Helicon is the latest major version of the Avalanche mainnet node client following the testnet rollout earlier in the year.

With Helicon live, validators can now vote to raise or lower the minimum gas fee dynamically — @frostLedger highlighted the new fee-voting mechanism and called the impact of the six ACPs on mainnet "the real story."
Avalanche's John Nahas said the staking changes remove a "huge barrier" for regulated institutions, opening the network to institutional validators who previously couldn't commit capital for weeks at a time.
A recalibrated reward curve (ACP-285, phased in over 90 days) is designed to reduce AVAX issuance by an estimated 0.5–1 percentage point.
Helicon is the latest major version of the Avalanche mainnet node client following the testnet rollout earlier in the year.

Avalanche Helicon upgrade goes live on mainnet

Sources

Avalanche Helicon upgrade goes live on mainnet

Sources