What is Aptos (APT)?
Aptos (APT) is the native asset for the layer-1 blockchain of the same name. It’s a utility and governance asset that relies on scalability, reliability, and security. You can find the current Aptos price in the chart above.
The Mainnet and the Aptos token were launched in October 2022. It’s a follow-up project by the developers of Diem, who applied some of its technical aspects to the new blockchain. The platform is highly scalable and has been dubbed the “Solana-killer” due to its anticipated transaction speeds.
What is the Story Behind Aptos?
The Aptos crypto project was started by Mohammad “Mo” Shaikh and Avery Ching, who were formerly involved with Diem (also known as Libra), the now-defunct stablecoin payment system by Meta. They went on to create Aptos Labs. Shaikh is the CEO of the company, while Ching is the CTO and developer.
The project was revealed in a blog post by Shaikh in February 2022. According to the developers, Aptos aims to provide a safe, scalable, and upgradable network that’s completely decentralized and permissionless. The goal of Aptos is to promote the wider adoption of blockchain protocols and accelerate the transition to Web3.
The Aptos coin was developed using the Move programming language. It’s a custom transactions language that was initially created for the development of Diem. Move is used to create smart contracts. Additionally, the protocol uses the Move VM application development and optimization tool.
The project was in the works for three years. During the financing rounds, the company amassed more than $350 million in investments. The first Devnet version was launched in March 2022, with the Testnet following two months later. The Aptos blockchain officially went to Mainnet in October 2022.
On its launch day, the APT price was valued at $8.55. Less than two hours later, the price dropped below $7 and kept fluctuating throughout the first week. The asset is considered highly volatile and prone to rapid price changes.
How Does Aptos Work?
The initial Aptos token supply upon launch was 1 billion APT. At the time of writing, the project team hasn’t announced whether the asset will have a maximum supply cap or if it will be unlimited. Based on the launch tokenomics, APT was distributed as such:
- Community – 51.02%
- Core Contributors – 19%
- Foundation – 16.5%
- Investors – 13.48%
Sheikh described the tokenomics of APT as “designed with people at the core”. Given the initial supply, the asset can be treated as deflationary. This means that as the supply of 1 billion becomes more scarce, the Aptos price is expected to increase.
Aptos can be used as a utility token. Due to the relatively young age of this blockchain, not all of its use cases have been put into practice. However, it’s expected that over time, the utility will expand, which may impact the APT price in the market.
APT is also the network’s governance asset. This means that users who hold Aptos coins can directly impact the development of the blockchain as they are considered members of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
Network users can subscribe to the Aptos Name Service (ANS) to be used as their wallet address. Aptos names can be used as subdomains. The initial rental period is 1 year at a predetermined Aptos price.
The Aptos crypto network uses the Narwhal and Bullshark consensus mechanisms. A custom-made Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) engine that handles parallel transaction execution, thus increasing the network speed and reducing latency.
According to the developers, the blockchain can handle more than 130,000 transactions per second (TPS). The use of Block-STM technology may increase this number up to 160,000. The modular architecture was developed to support client flexibility and fast upgrading.
Aptos gas fees are calculated per operation cost, taking into consideration resources such as memory, storage, and CPU required for the transactions. The APT price for the gas fees is measured using octa, the smallest unit of the asset. One octa is worth 0.00000001 APT.
