Aptos (APT) has recently caught the market’s attention after almost quadrupling in value over the past month. The cryptocurrency initially failed in attracting interest due to being marked as a VC project. However, it seems that the community is willing to give Aptos a second chance.
Aptos is touted as a Solana alternative, the next Ethereum killer, a brand new L1 blockchain for DeFi, and many other things. Today’s article provides you with a comprehensive overview of what Aptos is capable of and how it works. You will also learn how efficient Aptos is compared to Solana and Ethereum.
The L1 blockchain market is about to be shaken by a new contender. Let’s check out what Aptos does that makes it stand out from projects such as Ethereum, Solana, and Avax.
Aptos is a Layer-1 blockchain network created by Aptos Labs that features improved scalability, security, and transaction fees. The project launched in October 2022 after raising $150 million in a funding round led by FTX Ventures. The project consists of ex-employees from Meta’s former crypto arm Diem.
Aptos Labs is committed to developing dApps on the Aptos blockchain that will forever redefine the Web3 experience. Their team, led by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, promises to bring greater network tooling and seamless usability, along with the benefits of decentralization, to the masses.
Aptos Labs has been developing their brand new blockchain network over the past three years, working together with more than 350 developers worldwide. The project is dedicated towards making blockchains more trusted, scalable, and cost-efficient.
Aptos officially launched on October 12th 2022 when the first genesis block was mined. The network’s main net launch took place 5 days later following the launch of Aptos Autumn. The project reached a market cap of $2.9 billion after only four months of existence.
The project gained a lot of attention from the crypto community by being recognised as the spiritual successor of Diem. Diem is a failed stablecoin initiative from Meta – formerly Facebook – that sought to bring crypto payments to the world’s largest social network. Most Aptos developers have in fact worked on developing Diem.
Aptos has raised more than $350 million in two funding rounds. The first funding round was a seed round that raised $200 million, joined by investing firms such as Variant, Multicoin Capital, Paxos, and PayPal Ventures. The second funding round was a Series A round led by FTX Ventures that raised $150 million.
Aptos achieves secure and fast transactions by utilizing the Move programming language. Most of the security on the Aptos blockchain is facilitated by the Move prover, which represents a focal verifier for smart contracts written in ove. The prover adds an extra safeguard for smart contract behavior and execution.
Moreover, the blockchain uses a data model that enables flexible key management coupled with hybrid custodial options. In combination with transaction transparency taking place before signing, users gain a safer and more trustworthy experience.
Aptos solves the issue of blockchain scalability by leveraging a modular and pipelined approach to processing transactions. Processes such as transaction dissemination, block metadata ordering, parallel transaction execution, batch storage, and ledger certification all take place at the same time.
By leveraging its unique technology, Aptos is capable of providing cheap and fast transactions all while improving hardware efficiency and requiring minimal resources. Anyone is free to run a blockchain node, and the costs for maintaining one are minimal.
Aptos should in theory have the ability to process up to 160,000 transactions per second. However, we have still to find out whether their blockchain is capable of doing so under heavy network demand and congestion.
The L1 market is incredibly competitive. Blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, AVAX, and others, all claim to be revolutionary – fixing problems such as scalability. However, no L1 blockchain is perfect yet. Even Ethereum, the most popular smart contract ecosystem of them all, fails in securing fast transactions during network congestion.
Aptos is touted as the next Ethereum killer – a marketing phrase often used in the L1 sector – that might finally make Web3 efficient for investors. Although the blockchain surely brings new things to the table, we have yet to see whether it can deliver what it advertises. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: Aptos has the potential to truly stand out from other L1 chains.
Aptos currently differentiates itself from Ethereum by having a greater transaction throughput. Aptos can confirm transactions in mere seconds, while it takes Ethereum more than a minute to do the same. Aptos also runs on 16x more CPU cores than Ethereum.
However, we are a long way from telling whether Aptos can uphold its superiority during times of high demand. Ethereum is definitely more reliable and has a performance that – although worse – is at least impossible to disrupt.
Aptos is more of a Solana killer for many within the crypto community. Many see Aptos as Solana’s direct competitor, due to featuring the same lightweight blockchain capable of supporting fast and cheap transactions. And truth be told, they have comparable speeds that are made possible due to computing blockchain transactions in parallel.
The only difference between the two comes in the form of reliability. Solana has had many power outages and network disruptions last year. Aptos has a long run and did not experience such things on a large scale. But it is obvious that the technology behind Aptos is capable of providing a more stable user experience.
Is Aptos a good investment? This question, which is so often asked, is difficult to answer. While Aptos certainly seems like an innovative L1 chain backed by a team of experienced professionals, there is no way of knowing how good the project is. The blockchain activity on Aptos is too low for us to tell whether it can remain scalable under high demand.
Price action tells us that investors are optimistic about the project’s future. Aptos (APT) has increased almost 400% during the month of January. Daily trading volume has also significantly increased, reaching a figure of $640 million. The price action has also had a positive effect on social sentiment as well.
High VC interest, innovative technology, and an ex-Diem team makes the perfect recipe for an attractive new L1 chain. Aptos has certainly changed its reputation over the short-term, and many investors might consider moving to the new chain soon. But for Aptos to cement itself as an important leader in the Web3 space, it will need more time.
Time, and only time, will prove whether Aptos is a good investment. We need to see more investors using the Aptos blockchain and provide feedback. If the blockchain can confirm its extravagant claim of 160,000 TPS, it will surely have a place amongst Ethereum and Solana.
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