Aptos is a layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain whose mainnet went live in October 2022. It was started by engineers who had worked on Diem, the blockchain project that Meta shut down, and it carries over much of that research. The native token is APT. The Aptos developer documentation is the primary technical reference for the network.
Where Aptos Came From
Meta (then Facebook) announced a payments blockchain called Libra in 2019. It was later renamed Diem and wound down in early 2022 after sustained regulatory pushback. Two people from that effort, Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, founded Aptos Labs to continue the work as an independent, public network.
Aptos raised large venture rounds in 2022 before it had a live product, and the mainnet launched on October 17, 2022. Two pieces of Diem technology came with it: the Move programming language and a consensus design from the HotStuff family.
The Move Programming Language
Move was written for Diem with one main idea: digital assets should behave like physical objects. In Move, a token is a resource. A resource cannot be copied, and it cannot be dropped by accident. It can only be moved from one place to another, and the compiler enforces this before the code ever runs.
This removes some classes of bugs that have caused large losses on other smart contract platforms, such as accidentally duplicating or destroying a balance. Move also ships with a formal verification tool, the Move Prover, that lets developers mathematically check that a contract follows stated rules. The Aptos docs have a section on Move on Aptos that explains the model.
Sui, another layer 1 founded by former Diem engineers, also uses Move. The two chains use different versions of the language and different data models, so contracts are not portable between them without changes.
How Aptos Processes Transactions
Aptos uses a Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus protocol called AptosBFT, derived from HotStuff. Validators stake APT, vote on blocks, and reach finality quickly, typically in around a second or less. As with other BFT systems, the network stays safe as long as less than one third of the stake is controlled by dishonest validators.
The better-known part of the design is Block-STM, a parallel execution engine. Most older chains execute transactions one after another. Block-STM runs many at once on the assumption that they will not conflict, then checks the results. Any transaction that touched the same data as another is re-run. Developers do not need to declare in advance what data a transaction will use.
Aptos Labs has published lab benchmarks showing very high throughput for Block-STM. Those figures come from controlled tests. Real throughput on the live network depends on validator hardware, the type of transactions and actual demand, and it has been far below the benchmark numbers.
What APT Is Used For
- Gas fees: every transaction pays a fee in APT.
- Staking: validators and delegators stake APT to secure the network and earn rewards.
- Governance: staked APT votes on protocol upgrades and parameter changes.
APT Tokenomics
APT launched with an initial supply of 1 billion tokens and no hard cap. According to the allocation the Aptos Foundation published at launch, about 51% went to the community category, 19% to core contributors, 16.5% to the foundation and about 13.5% to investors.
Investor and core contributor tokens were locked for the first year and then released on a schedule over four years from mainnet. New APT is also created as staking rewards, so supply grows over time. The reward rate was designed to decline gradually, and governance can change it. Anyone evaluating APT should look at the circulating supply next to the total supply, because the gap between them shows how many tokens are still to be released.
The Aptos Ecosystem
Applications on Aptos include decentralized exchanges, lending markets, liquid staking protocols, wallets and NFT marketplaces. PancakeSwap, which started on BNB Chain, runs a deployment on Aptos, and native-issued stablecoins are available on the network. The Aptos Foundation funds developers through grants.
Aptos Labs has also pursued partnerships with large technology and finance companies. Announcements of this kind do not by themselves show usage. On-chain activity, fees paid and liquidity are better measures.
Risks to Understand
- Competition: Aptos competes with Ethereum, Solana, Sui and many others for the same developers and users.
- Smaller developer base: Move is less widely known than Solidity or Rust, and Aptos is not compatible with Ethereum tooling by default.
- Token supply: scheduled releases to investors and contributors, plus staking rewards, add to circulating supply and can create selling pressure.
- Young network: Aptos has a short track record compared with Bitcoin or Ethereum, and its validator set is smaller.
- Volatility: APT has tended to move with the wider crypto market and has seen deep drawdowns.
Common Mistakes
Treating benchmark throughput as live performance is the most common one. A second is ignoring the vesting schedule and looking only at price. A third is assuming Aptos and Sui are interchangeable because both use Move. They are separate networks with separate tokens, wallets and applications.
Nothing in this article is financial advice.
Key Aptos Facts
- Mainnet launch: October 17, 2022
- Origin: former Diem (Meta) engineers, Aptos Labs
- Language: Move
- Consensus: AptosBFT, proof of stake
- Execution: Block-STM parallel engine
- Initial supply: 1 billion APT, no hard cap
Track on CoinMarketGuy
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