What is Aptos? Can it Compete with Ethereum?

The Crypto industry has been silent for a couple of months now. You can see many people saying that Crypto will never recover and will slowly die out. 

Despite all this uncertainty, Aptoslabs has developed a new Layer 1 blockchain called Aptos. Their goal is to increase scalability and improve security and usability. 

Co-founders Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching lead the Aptoslabs team. The co-founders worked on the Diem blockchain at Meta. They have raised over $350 million from two rounds of funding. 

The blockchain was built with Move, a Rush-based programming language. The blockchain's key features are low transaction costs and better security. 

How Does Aptos Work?

Many technical factors allow Aptos to theoretically reach 160,000 transactions per second while maintaining security and reliability. Let us look at some of them:-

Move Language

Move was initially created for the Diem blockchain. It is a type of executable bytecode language that is flexible and more secure. With Move, users can define custom resources making it difficult for malicious activity on the Aptos blockchain. 

Block-STM Technology

This is a parallel execution engine for smart contracts. It is built around the principle of Software Transactional Memory. Here, transactions are grouped in blocks, and every block execution must yield the same deterministic outcome. 

A single failed transaction won't cause congestion, as the parallel execution engine can handle multiple transactions simultaneously. A collaborative scheduler prioritizes certain transactions on the blockchain to handle essential validation effectively. 

BFT Consensus Protocol

Aptos created a Byzantine fault tolerant (BFT) engine that analyzes individual states on-chain and automatically updates validators. This ensures accuracy when processes run in parallel. 

How is Aptos Different?

Aptos was created to bring blockchain technology to the masses. Aptos focuses on user experience, usability, and upgradeability. Aptos already has a community of thousands of members who are developing many projects. 

Aptos's ability for parallel transaction processing is a game-changer. This is also where it differs from other blockchains.

Move enables Aptos to possibly achieve high transaction throughput without affecting security. 

Another great thing about Aptos is that the co-founders are experienced and were previously part of the Diem project in Meta. 

Aptos also has something called the Aptos incentivized Testnet or AIT. This Testnet aims to reward network participants such as developers, builders, node operators, etc. 

Aptos also has a grant program that provides funding for projects. This step is to help the ecosystem grow faster. 

Aptos launched its mainnet, Aptos Autumn, on 17th October 2022. This launch leverages the BFT consensus mechanism. 

Aptos is now available on major exchanges. 

Aptos Negatives

Since Aptos is VC-dependent, most of the tokens are held by private buyers and early investors. The Aptos team collectively holds 80% of the token supply.

When Aptos launched on the 17th, they didn't disclose any tokenomics, such as total supply and issuance rate. APT's price fell by 40% because of this. 

Final Thoughts

Aptos is still in the initial stages, and it is hard to predict what will happen. It is best to be cautious when investing. The best way to test out the potential is to contribute and get an idea of how to build on Aptos.