What is APT Coin? Should You Invest in Aptos (APT)?

Aptos (APT) is a Layer-1 blockchain that has attracted a lot of attention from investors recently. But what exactly is the Aptos project? What is APT coin? Does the Aptos (APT) coin have potential for investment? Let’s “dissect” this coin in the content of the article below.

What is Aptos – APT Coin: Should You Invest?

What is APT Coin?

APT coin is the primary currency of the Aptos platform, a new Layer-1 blockchain project focused on developing towards the goal of providing the safest blockchain for a large number of users worldwide. Aptos promises to become a Layer-1 blockchain surpassing famous names like Ethereum and Solana.

The name Aptos (APT) might be relatively unknown to many, but in fact, the company behind it was founded by a team of developers who previously worked for DIEM – Meta (Facebook)’s abandoned blockchain initiative around January 1. This means that Aptos already has a solid foundation to build many products in its ecosystem. That’s why it was listed by major exchanges – APT.

A few information channels of Aptos (APT):

• Website: https://aptoslabs.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/aptoslabs
• Telegram: https://t.me/aptoslabs
• Medium: https://aptoslabs.medium.com/
• Discord: https://discord.gg/tuDs9TmWwv

Assessing the Tokenomics of Aptos (APT)

The total supply of APT is over 1 billion tokens. Over 80% of these tokens have been staked – meaning they have owners and will gradually be unlocked.

The allocation of Aptos (APT) tokens is as follows:

• Community: 510,217,359.767 APT (51.02%)
• Core team members: 190,000,000 APT (19%)
• Project fund: 165,000,000 APT (16.5%)
• Investors: 134,782,640.233 APT (13.48%)

Of the allocation for the community, 410,217,359.76 APT will be managed by the Aptos Foundation, and the remaining 100 million will be managed by Aptos Labs. This amount will be allocated to the development activities of the Aptos ecosystem over the next 10 years. The annual inflation rate from increasing the total supply through staking will be 7%/year and decrease by 1.5% each year until it reaches 3.25%.

Transaction fees on the network, paid in APT, will be burned to create deflationary pressure.

Additionally, APT coin gives holders governance rights to participate in voting to change project parameters, as well as other decisions such as the inflation rate from staking, burning APT transaction fees, etc.

Highlights about Aptos – What is APT coin?

Despite the presence of many blockchains today, the overall application of Web3 has not yet occurred. Aptos aims to create a blockchain capable of mainstreaming Web3 adoption and empowering a decentralized ecosystem to solve real-world user problems. As global infrastructure demands increase, the blockchain’s processing resources will expand horizontally and vertically to meet these needs. Therefore, Aptos’ goal is to enhance the advanced reliability, security, and performance of blockchain. In return, they can offer a modular and flexible blockchain architecture.

Now, let’s look at the project and its vision. APTOS was launched on February 24, 2022. In their first media post, the team clearly stated their vision. They hope to build their project:

• As a Layer 1 blockchain for everyone.
• Focusing on absolute safety combined with enhanced scalability.
• Creating fair and global access to decentralized assets for billions of people.

To achieve this, Aptos has deployed many other impressive technological features. Let’s delve a little deeper:

Firstly, Aptos uses a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol promising high efficiency. From the initial consensus of “Hotstuff” BFT, Aptos Labs spent 3 years and 4 iterations to build their BFT V4 engine. Thanks to this, APTOS has the following capabilities:

• No downtime with a diverse set of operators.
• Immutability and safety: The blockchain cannot be split.
• Compatibility with decentralization: The project selects non-responsive validators on the chain.

=> These features make APTOS a strong Layer1 project for deploying smart contracts.

Secondly, Aptos has a special feature called parallel execution. It means, APTOS can run multiple chains simultaneously. In contrast, current blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum use sequential execution – meaning they can only process the next transaction after the previous one has been verified.

=> With AptosBFT V4 and parallel execution, APTOS can achieve high throughput. Below is a comparison between Time-to-Finality (TTF) and Transactions Per Second (TPS) of Aptos with other L1 projects.

*** However, according to Aptos Explorer, the TPS of Aptos is 4 transactions/second, with 102 validators currently active. The gap between 4 and 160,000 is extremely huge.

Because the mainnet did not meet expectations, this will be a minus for Aptos. But from another perspective, since the mainnet has just been launched, the project has not yet attracted many users and Dapps, so the small number of transactions is inevitable. Therefore, we will re-evaluate this information when the Aptos ecosystem develops and has more transactions***

Thirdly, Aptos uses a programming language called Move. In the past, Move was specifically built to develop DIEM. Now, it helps developers build APTOS. Some advantages of this programming language:

• Move allows for quick and safe execution as well as simple testing and mechanical analysis.
• Creates extremely high throughput and low latency through batch, linked, and parallel transaction processing methods.
• Optimizes performance and decentralization achieved by rotating the weighted stake validator set.
• Implementing upgradability and configurability into their core design concepts.

Who are the Founders of Aptos (APT)?

As a cryptocurrency investor, when learning about APT coin, it is also important to research the team members of the project. The Aptos team comprises engineers, researchers, strategists, designers, and builders with high achievements. All 15 members have complete LinkedIn profiles. Here, we only highlight the experience of the two founders:

• Mo Shaikh – Formerly the Strategy Director at ConsenSys and CEO of Meridio. Currently, he serves as an advisor and board member of several companies.
• Avery Ching – Over 10 years of experience in software engineering. Previously served as Vice President of Apache Giraph.

Investors and Partners of Aptos (APT)

Aptos (APT coin) has undergone several funding rounds, invested in by many large investment funds.

• In February 2022, Aptos raised 200 million USD, valued at 1 billion USD from a16z, Tiger Global, and Multicoin Capital, among other venture capital funds.
• On July 25, 2022, Aptos announced a 150 million USD Series A investment from major funds including FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, Apollo, Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures, Superscrypt, along with two investors from the private round (a16z crypto and Multicoin).
• Binance Labs also doubled its investment in Aptos, raising the valuation of this blockchain startup to 4 billion USD.

Support from Binance Labs is a good sign indicating the project’s promise. In fact, Yi He, co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs, chose to invest in Aptos partly due to the Move programming language that Aptos is using to build its blockchain.

Notable Partners of Aptos (APT coin)

Aptos announced a partnership with Google Cloud, which they use for data storage to support easy node operation for validators (taking only 15 minutes to install and start a node).

Subsequently, PancakeSwap, the largest DEX on the BNB Chain, announced its deployment on the Aptos blockchain after user community approval.

One of the leading cold wallets, Atomic Wallet, currently boasting over 3 million users, also announced their immediate support for APT.

Welcome, @Aptos_Network to @AtomicWallet! Aptos is a layer 1 blockchain created for safe development and built with user experience as a core focus.

Manage $APT tokens with private keys with ease. pic.twitter.com/p7zm7EO5OU

— Atomic – Crypto Wallet (@AtomicWallet) January 13, 2023

It’s clear that the APTOS ecosystem is growing rapidly, with many partners and developers approaching it. Below is a compilation of some projects in the Aptos (APT coin) ecosystem

Competitors of Aptos (APT)

Like any Layer-1 project, competition is inevitable in the battle to develop the ecosystem. Aptos (APT) will face many competitors, such as:

• Leading smart contract blockchain – Ethereum.
• Other developed Layer-1 blockchains – Binance Chain, Solana, Avalanche, and more.
• Rising Layer 1 projects – Tron, NEAR, ASTAR, Moonbeam, etc.
• Layer 2 projects – Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, etc.
• Upcoming Layer projects – Sui, Celestia, etc.

=> As can be seen, the competition is huge, and Aptos is still quite young – so there is a long road ahead for APTOS to surpass its competitors.

Should You Invest in Aptos (APT)?

Having learned about what APT coin is, the question arises: does APT coin have potential?

In my personal opinion, this is a blockchain with good technology and a lot of potential for future development because:

• Aptos offers unique and promising features that are hard to find in other Layer 1 protocols.
• In terms of technology, Aptos (APT) has many superior aspects to Ethereum and Solana in terms of scalability and overall network capacity.
• Aptos (APT) is backed by many large investment funds, especially Binance and FTX. Therefore, it is likely to be a highly anticipated project in the future.

Previously, Binance Research dedicated a topic to discuss Aptos. They praised the platform, especially the #Move programming language. Its parallel execution tool (supporting scalability), modular architecture (supporting regular upgrades), and the use of #Move are the main differences. According to Binance Research, the programming language and unique features provided by Aptos could help the #crypto industry constantly innovate.

Therefore, soon after the topic posted by Binance Research about Aptos (APT), the price of APT once again showed strong growth – signaling it as a strong project for long-term development.

In addition, the Aptos team has set a goal to reduce gas fees by 10 to 100 times with a possibly more significant plan. To realize this capability, Aptos has directly negotiated with many builders in the ecosystem, including Aries, AUX, Econia, Ferum, Nutrios, Pyth, Souffl3, Switchboard, Topaz, Tsunami, etc. If successful, this will be a major improvement for the Aptos blockchain, and the APT token could continue to see strong growth in the future.

Furthermore, another milestone is the rising activity in Aptos’ NFTs, especially in the Topaz NFT market specifically for the robust Aptos. If NFTs gain attention in the future and Topaz attracts many users and valuable NFT collections, this could also be a driving force for APT coin growth.

⇒ I believe that long-term investment in APT coin could yield good results.

However, if you plan to surf the waves or FOMO in the early stages, restraint is advised, as currently Aptos (APT) is showing some “red flags”. For example:

• First: More than 80% of tokens have been staked – and will gradually be unlocked. These tokens are in the hands of early investors and the team – raising concerns that price manipulation could occur at any time.
• Second: Regarding the allocation of APT tokens, is the claimed 51% for the community genuinely for the community? Many mockingly suggest that the ‘community’ includes a16z, Multicoin, FTX, Tiger Global, Jump.
• Third: Investment by many venture capitals (VCs) may seem positive. But given the recent domino effect of VC bankruptcies causing turmoil in the cryptocurrency market, caution is advised with projects heavily held by VCs. Currently, Aptos (APT) appears to be heavily influenced by ‘whales’.

Is now the right time to buy APT coin? You could try ‘swimming with the sharks’, but it’s advisable to invest only a reasonable amount of capital – as Aptos (APT) currently harbors significant risks for small investors.

From a long-term investment perspective – this might still be a project worth waiting for. Therefore, wait and see how its ecosystem develops initially – only then can you accurately assess and consider investing in Aptos (APT)’s future.

Invest wisely with a reasonable amount of capital – Wishing you smart and successful investments!