Can Aptos recover from its unsuccessful launch?
A closer look at the Aptos blockchain and ecosystem. Find out about its Innovative features and concepts, Aptos token (APT), and the current state of Aptos DeFi.
Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, the innovative L1 blockchain platform Aptos has been in development for three years already and has come to market just recently. Aptos claims to be more technologically advanced in most aspects than other blockchains. Namely, it can even surpass Solana in its transaction throughput. Read on to learn about this potential Ethereum killer and what practical applications can it bring to the Web3 environment.
TL;DR:
- Aptos is a Layer 1 blockchain platform optimized for scalability and security
- Formerly developed as a blockchain initiative called Diem under Meta (Facebook), the developers separated and some continued under the Aptos flag
- Aptos is written in a rust-based programming language - Move and offers a PoS BTF consensus engine capable of running parallel transactions
- The APT token serves as an incentive for stakers and Validators to secure the network and may be also used in the Aptos DeFi ecosystem
Abandoned Meta Project and Massive Investments
The Aptos projects originated from the former blockchain division of Meta (yes, the Meta), called Diem, which was later dissolved. Developers working on Diem took the initiative to their own hands and founded what is today known as Aptos. The other group of former Diem developers founded a similar Move-based platform - the Sui network. Both groups had a solid technological foundation for their projects, comprised of the most advanced tools in the industry.
Thanks to this background in Meta, Aptos made an impressive case with investors, collecting hundreds of millions of USD from various VCs, one of which was the notoriously known FTX Ventures. Some investors were worried about this relationship later on after the FTX collapse, however, it did not cause any serious problems.
The Infamous launch
The Aptos mainnet launched publicly in October 2022 although the launch did not go according to the team's expectations. There were pieces of tech that worked poorly and for a brief time the network processed only about 4 transactions per second. Some concerns were also raised about the share of developer profits.
Current Performance
Since then, the Aptos blockchain demonstrates steady growth in the digital ecosystem, with a TVL of $60.36 million (around 0.12% across all chains). It has about 3.5 millions unique addresses at the moment of writing this article and a 24-hour trading volume of $616,233 with approximately 700,000 daily transactions.
These figures provide a balanced view of the Aptos blockchain's performance, underscoring its potential for further growth in the competitive blockchain space.
Unique Features and How Aptos Works
Move Programming Language
From its ancestor Diem, Apos has inherited a whole new rust-based programming language called Move. This language was developed with flexibility and speed in mind. It contains several features that eliminate unnecessary steps in the communication process between nodes and therefore make transferring information more efficient.
Aptos is an L1 network working on a different base than Ethereum and therefore coins, apps and other pieces of code cannot be imported. But on the other hand, this incompatibility allowed for the development of a whole new ecosystem.
The Consensus Engine
Users on the Aptos network transact with each other, and some of them use special software to help confirm the transactions. These users are so-called Validators, which can be further separated into full nodes and light clients. The only difference is that full nodes maintain the entire blockchain history, whereas light clients only store a part of it.
Validators stake APT tokens and receive proportional rewards for their service. The consensus runs as a Proof of Stake (PoS) with the Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) engine.
The Consensus engine even allows for parallel execution of transactions, which is part of the reason why Aptos is able to reach (in theory) very high TPS (Transactions Per Second). One failed transaction does not congest the network like on linear blockchains.
The APT token Usecases and Potential
APT is the native token of the Aptos network, it is used to incentivize Validators to behave honestly by staking and receiving rewards. The token currently sits in the Top 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap.
Apart from that, APT can be used in the Aptos DeFi ecosystem for lending and borrowing, yield farming, swapping, and more. The total supply of APT is around 1 billion tokens, half of which is dedicated to the community, rest is divided between investors, founding team, early adopters, and so on.
The price of APT experienced a rapid increase during January 2023 and has been slowly declining ever since. If the increase will repeat, we could be looking at a new narrative of Move-based cryptocurrencies.
What Can you do on the Aptos chain?
The mainnet has been live for some time now and during that period, some of the decentralized applications (dApps) started to emerge. An important part of each network is DEX and AMM - the most popular ones are PancakeSwap and LiquidSwap.
Liquid staking protocols help users with the complexities and high requirements of staking - for that you can use Tortuga or Ditto.
And of course, Lending protocols must not be missing on any blockchain. On lending and borrowing on Aptos check out Aries Markets and ABEL finance.
