Dubai’s Courts Now Record Orders on Avalanche. Is AVAX a Better Buy Than Solana?
Dubai just put court orders on the Avalanche blockchain, sending AVAX up nearly 37% in a month while Solana stumbles before its biggest upgrade of the year. The question is whether this real-world milestone gives AVAX staying power or just…
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Dubai’s DIFC Courts began linking court orders to blockchain certificates on Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX) on October 14, 2026, reigniting the AVAX vs. Solana debate. As of October 15, AVAX trades at $10, up 1.5% in the past day and 36.7% over the last 30 days.
In contrast, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is priced at $106, with a much smaller 30-day gain of 7.9%. Despite being a smaller network, Avalanche’s recent developments have driven faster price growth than Solana. Does this make AVAX the better buy right now?
How Dubai’s DIFC Courts Use the Avalanche Blockchain
The DIFC Courts oversee commercial disputes within the Dubai International Financial Center, a prominent business hub with English-speaking legal systems. In 2025, these courts managed over 2,500 claims totaling $5.1 billion.
Now, every new court order or hearing record is assigned a unique cryptographic fingerprint linked to a certificate on the Avalanche C-Chain, its main blockchain. This fingerprint is a short code generated from the document itself.
If the document changes, the code will no longer match, giving banks, governments, and other courts a reliable way to verify documents quickly. The DIFC Courts ensure that sensitive case details remain off the blockchain.
This represents a real-world use of technology that can generate transaction fees. However, AVAX’s price is mainly driven by demand, as the court’s paperwork incurs only minimal fees, so high activity on Avalanche doesn’t necessarily mean people will buy and hold AVAX.
Avalanche Fees Jumped 60 Times Before Cooling Off
Transaction fees are what users pay to process transactions on the network. Avalanche’s daily fees dropped sharply to $1,066 on July 30, then soared to a peak of $64,010 on September 24—about 60 times the low. Daily fees currently fluctuate between $10,000 and $20,000.
As fees rose, so did AVAX’s price, though it recently fell to $9.62 on October 15, as recent Avalanche coverage noted, before bouncing back above $10. Notably, AVAX is still 93.1% down from its all-time high of $145, reached in November 2021.
Supply dilution complicates recovery, as more AVAX tokens are entering circulation. Of a maximum supply of 720 million tokens, more than 443 million are currently available. With AVAX’s market cap around $4.46 billion, it ranks 27th in the cryptocurrency landscape.
Solana Has an October 21 Upgrade, but ETF Investors Are Pulling Back
Solana rose 1.6% over the past day but fell 2.0% over the week and up just 7.9% over the past month. It trades 63.9% below its January 2025 peak of $293.
The upcoming Alpenglow upgrade, set to launch on October 21, aims to speed up how quickly validators—computers that confirm transactions—reach agreement, promising to cut finality times to roughly 150 milliseconds.
Despite these advancements, demand from Wall Street appears weak. U.S. spot Solana ETFs, which invest directly in SOL and function like stocks, faced net outflows in nine of the ten trading sessions leading up to October 14, according to SoSoValue. With about $1.66 billion in net assets, institutional investors appear to be pulling back right before the vital upgrade.
Still, Solana is a much larger network than Avalanche, with a market cap of about $62.4 billion—about 14 times Avalanche’s. So while Avalanche’s recent fee increase looks significant, remember it started from a low base of $1,066.
AVAX vs. Solana: Which Is the Better Investment?
Despite the buzz surrounding the DIFC Courts’ use of Avalanche, Solana remains better positioned overall. With a major upgrade on the horizon, a much larger market cap, and $1.66 billion in ETF assets, Solana has the edge. Meanwhile, AVAX’s recent price surge was closely tied to a spike in fees that has already started to stabilize between $10,000 and $20,000.
For AVAX to become a stronger investment choice, it will need to stay above $10, keep daily fees around $20,000, and attract more institutional participation on the C-Chain. The first crucial test will occur with the Alpenglow upgrade on October 21. If AVAX can sustain a price above $10 while Solana ETFs continue to see outflows, perceptions around Solana may shift. However, if AVAX dips below $10 and fees fall below $10,000, its recent gains could quickly fade.
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Sam Daodu is a crypto analyst who's spent nearly a decade making blockchain understandable—no easy task when most whitepapers read like fever dreams. He writes for 24/7 Wall St., covering Bitcoin, altcoins, and crypto market analysis for investors. Before crypto, he was a tech writer (back when explaining "the cloud" was peak innovation). Since 2018, he's written for CoinTelegraph, Yahoo Finance, The Block, Cryptonews, Zypto, Rain, and more—basically anywhere people want crypto news without the headache. Sam runs MacLabs Marketing, a content agency for crypto brands tired of sounding like AI wrote their website. He also publishes free crypto education on his site for Web3 enthusiasts who think "gas fees" is a typo. When he's not writing or staring at charts, Sam's either: - Watching anime (currently convinced One Piece has better tokenomics than most altcoins) - At the gym sculpting himself into a Greek god - Listening to the music your mum warned you only bad boys listen to Connect: LinkedIn | Email | MacLabs Marketing
