The Aptos Launch Went Poorly
The Aptos main net launch resulted in a massive token dump, low network usage, and horrible tokenomics.
This week brought us a new crypto mainnet launch–Aptos. It did not go well. If you’re not familiar with Aptos, it’s another altcoin that raised huge VC funding. Here are some of the specs:
- 130,000 transactions per second advertised. 4 transactions per second at launch (that’s less than Bitcoin)
- Raised $400M from just about every major crypto VC you can think of at a $2B valuation. $960M public market cap shortly after launch.
Aptos is advertising itself as the “Solana Killer.” Looking at my current wallet balance, I’m not convinced there needs to be a Solana killer, but we have it now. So how did the Aptos launch go?
It was horrible.
Aptos didn’t hit its advertised 130,000 transactions per second (TSP). It was hanging out in the single digits. At one point Aptos was operating at 4 TPS–less than Bitcoin. The transactions going on were validators talking to each other, just like the controversy we recently saw with Helium. It’s a new blockchain though, so we can definitely give them the benefit of the doubt there, though if I were to launch a new blockchain I’d try to launch with meaningful projects to use.
Aptos (APT) Tokenomics and Distribution
The real problem with Aptos is the same problem we see with most of these sketchy altcoin launches: tokenomics and distribution. At the time of mainnet launch, a whopping 51% of tokens were held by VC firms. VC firms are notorious for dumping tokens as soon as they possibly can, and the Aptos investors are the very firms who built that horrible reputation. It’s not a shock that Aptos’ APT token crashed 40% on launch day, and has continued to struggle.
Much of crypto Twitter can be summed up when @iamDCinvestor tweeted how these tokenomics show Aptos is a “a fairly blatant cash grab.”
What’s even crazier is that Aptos launched without even publishing what their distribution was going to be. Exchanges like FTX and Binance launched spot trading for APT pairs but didn’t have any information available for what the total circulating supply of APT was. To be totally clear, this is extremely weird. No one should be buying tokens without knowing information about the supply, issuance rate, etc. These are the basics to evaluating current valuation.
Many on Twitter are dunking on Aptos for the utility of the token essentially being to stake the token and dump the rewards.
In short, not the best launch we’ve seen.