Aptos has been partly built with the help of a programming language called Move, and has the ambition of making crypto transactions both faster and cheaper.
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The excitement surrounding Aptos was palpable — with some in the crypto industry proclaiming that this new blockchain could be a "Solana killer."
But despite this network being four years in the making, it's had a very shaky start indeed… for multiple reasons.
Aptos has been partly built with the help of a programming language called Move, and has the ambition of making crypto transactions both faster and cheaper.
If that sounds familiar, Move was also being used by Diem — Facebook's doomed cryptocurrency project — before it closed in the face of a regulatory backlash.
The notion of faster payments was questioned immediately as some on Crypto Twitter claimed that it was falling far short of the promised capacity of 100,000 transactions per second.
Paradigm Engineer #420 claimed on Monday that true TPS was actually closer to four — that's less than what's achieved by the Bitcoin blockchain.
Aptos said that this figure, which was correct as of Tuesday night, didn't include user transactions as yet — but they are expected to begin soon.
Others were left scratching their head as to how Aptos had managed to achieve a market cap far greater than Uniswap Labs... even before the mainnet had launched.
And alarm bells have also been raised over the fact that 49% of tokens have been allocated to developers and private investors.
If that wasn't enough, comments on Discord and Telegram were also paused for a time — but Aptos Labs claimed this was "to protect the community from scams."
Aptos tokens began trading in the early hours of Wednesday — and as of 9am London time, CoinMarketCap data shows APT had fallen 11%, trading at $7.45. It's currently ranked as the 52nd-largest cryptocurrency.
Announcing its launch, Aptos had said that it was determined to offer a "people-first user experience," adding:
"This is step one in a long journey to create universal and fair access to decentralized applications for billions of people through a safe, scalable, and upgradable blockchain."
The platform added that "prioritizing a simple and relatable experience for all is the only way Web3 can reach the billions of people that are online today."
Greater levels of clarity have also been offered concerning the tokenomics of Aptos.
At launch, the initial total supply stands at one billion tokens — with 51% of those going to the community.
Of this, 125 million APT is immediately available "to support ecosystem projects, grants, and other community growth initiatives now and in the future."
Meanwhile, investors and current core contributors are subject to a lock-up schedule that lasts for four years — with no APT set to be available for the next 12 months.
