Aptos Review: APT Any Potential?! This You NEED To Know!!

Last week the mainnet for Aptos the So-called Solana killer officially went Live its apt coin listed on every major Crypto exchange shortly afterwards and This sent its price soaring for days on End however the crypto Project’s close Connections to Big Tech its heavy Venture Capital backing and its messy Mainnet launch have left many in the Crypto Community questioning aptos’s end Game Today I’m going to tell you everything You need to know about Aptos including Where it came from who made it how it Works the tokenomics of Apt and whether This crypto project has any potential Foreign I’ll start by saying that nothing in This video is financial advice it’s an Analysis of a crypto Project based on Publicly available information and Intended for educational purposes Note that this information may change Given that Aptos is brand new a few Resources will be in the description if You’re interested Now as some of you will know the history Of Aptos begins with DM for those Unfamiliar DM was Facebook’s now metas Failed digital currency project Facebook’s blockchain arm started Working on DM in 2017. back then DM was Known as Libra which might ring a bell Now in contrast to actual

Cryptocurrencies Libra was going to be a Centralized blockchain controlled by Facebook and its constituents the Libra Coin itself was going to be a stable Coin backed by a basket of Fiat Currencies what’s interesting is that Libra was actually supposed to Decentralize after five years Now when Libra was revealed to the Public in 2019 governments around the World went into crisis mode the idea of A big tech company with billions of Users rolling out its own digital Currency terrified them if you watched Any of our videos about crypto Regulations you’ll know they were Largely inspired by Libra So The Regulators cracked down on Libra Harder than the asteroid that killed all The dinosaurs 66 million years ago Libra tried ditching its plans to Decentralize tried to bow to the global Banks and even tried rebranding to DM to Get through all the red tape it didn’t Work and DM died in January this year However that didn’t stop some of DM’s Developers from starting their own Crypto projects to my knowledge there Are two the first is Aptos and the Second is sui sui recently raised 300 Million dollars from crypto VCS but has Yet to launch its mainnet we will cover Sui once it’s up and running as for Aptos it was founded in late 2021 as a

Fun fact Aptos is the name of an Unincorporated town on the coast of California Aptos reportedly means for The people in the Indigenous language of The area but some sources suggest it Means meeting of two waters In any case being named after a coastal Area of California is one of the many Similarities Aptos shares with Solana For context Solana was named after a Californian Beach Town that’s about 30 Minutes north of San Diego not Surprisingly the teams behind both Solana and Aptos are based in Silicon Valley S Aptos was founded by Muhammad Sheikh And Avery Ching Muhammad holds a Masters In Business Administration and his Previous work experience is as Impressive as it is terrifying his Resume includes BlackRock the Boston Consulting Group ethereum Builder Consensus and of course meta Avery Meanwhile holds a PhD in computer Science and has spent most of his career Working as a principal software engineer At Facebook one of the highest positions In the company I also couldn’t help but Notice that Avery briefly worked at the Los Alamos laboratory in Nevada a Facility famous for its military Research Now what’s odd is that Aptos reportedly Has over 350 developers working on its

Blockchain yet only Muhammad and Avery Are noted as being part of the Aptos Labs team on the company’s website the Aptos Labs LinkedIn also has a low Number with just 78 employees at the Company what’s even more odd is that There isn’t any information about the Aptos Foundation which oversees the Crypto Project’s development nor its Members the terms and conditions of the Website reveal that the Aptos Foundation Is based in the Cayman Islands recall That Aptos Labs is based in the USA Despite these peculiarities Aptos Managed to raise 350 million dollars From various crypto VCS across two Funding rounds the first funding round Was for 200 million dollars in March This year and the second was for 150 Million dollars in July this year The Aptos white paper was published in August Now aptos’s second funding round was Especially significant because it was Led by FTX Ventures it looks like FTX is One of the largest if not the largest Investor in Aptos Heavy investment from FTX is another Thing that Solana and Aptos have in Common Ftx’s investment in Aptos seem to have Either made binance nervous or just more Bullish that’s because binance announced It had invested an additional

Undisclosed amount in Aptos labs in September Some have taken this as a sign that Aptos has serious potential The VC battle makes sense when you Realize that Aptos uses a proof-of-stake Blockchain this means whichever entity Owns the most apt has the greatest Influence over the blockchain in aptos’s Case this investor influence is Especially acute due to aptos’s upcoming On-chain governance now it’s also Important to note that one of the Largest investors in aptos’s first Funding round was three arrows Capital The infamous crypto hedge fund that went Bankrupt earlier this year what’s Concerning is that Aptos has since Removed all references to 3ac from its Blog posts You can learn about how three hours Capital collapsed using the link in the Description anyways on with the show Now whereas DM was essentially a Centralized coin Aptos aims to be What Libra was supposed to be at the end Of its original roadmap a decentralized Cryptocurrency That said Aptos seems to have a lot more In common with DM than it does with say Bitcoin or ethereum Maybe it’s just me but the way that Muhammad and Avery have spoken about Aptos in the few interviews they’ve

Given makes it sound like the project is A covert continuation of DM Case in point aptos’s mission is to Unite web 2 and web 3 and it is working Uncomfortably closely with Google in Order to do this There is more evidence under the hood Aptos uses a delegated proof of State Blockchain like many modern Cryptocurrencies the team behind Aptos Claims its blockchain is simultaneously Scalable I.E fast decentralized and Secure something that’s logically Impossible due to the blockchain Trilemma to quickly recap the blockchain Trilemma states that a cryptocurrency Can only be decentralized and scalable Scalable and secure or secure and Decentralized every crypto project Ultimately makes a trade-off of some Kind in bitcoin’s case for instance it Trades scalability for robust security And decentralization In aptos’s case it not so subtly trades Decentralization for scalability and Security Although the Aptos blockchain boasts Tens of thousands of full nodes it only Has 102 validators what’s annoying is That the number of full nodes on Aptos Does not appear to be noted on any of Its blockchain explorers but don’t let The term full node fool you Aptos’s documentation suggests its

Blockchain only stores the current state Of The Ledger I.E account balances and Transactions This is similar to another crypto Project called Mina protocol which Stores the current state of its Blockchain in a small digital snapshot Like Mina protocol Aptos has a series of Nodes which store its historical Blockchain data on a quote single Version distributed database the number Of nodes storing aptos’s full Transaction history here is unknown the Documentation suggests it’s the 102 Validator nodes but they aren’t Obligated to store it now if you watched Our video about cryptocurrency Decentralization you’ll know that Storage of a cryptocurrency’s long-term Transaction history is an important part Of decentralization without this Information a cryptocurrency could be Easily corrupted over time or Manipulated by malicious nodes This is why I was seriously saddened to Hear that Solana had started using Google bigtable to store its data in Lieu of our weave which is a Decentralized storage cryptocurrency it Wouldn’t surprise me at all if it turns Out that Aptos is doing something Similar especially since its blockchain Is growing quickly too The relative centralization of the Aptos

Blockchain makes it possible for it to Process up to 4 200 transactions per Second with a theoretical maximum of 160 000 transactions per second Current and maximum TPS scores for major Cryptos can be seen here courtesy of FTX Note how it shills Solana Now what’s impressive is that aptos’s Current 4200 TPS also applies to more Complex smart contract transactions this Is one of the reasons binance gave for Its additional investment into Aptos Which was again probably also motivated By ftx’s own additional investment During the second funding round Another reason why binance invested so Much in Aptos is because of its novel Coding language and new virtual machine Everything on Aptos is coded in move a Programming language based on Rust that Was invented by DM’s Developers Aptos uses its own move virtual machine For smart contracts so three things to Note here The first is that move isn’t the only Thing that DMS developers invented in an Interview Muhammad explained that DM Basically had access to unlimited Resources for research and development As a result Aptos uses cutting-edge Tech That I am barely scratching the surface Of here what’s cool is that Aptos Labs Actually has a research papers page that Looks eerily similar to the research

Papers library page of cardano Builder Iohk Aptos’s cutting-edge research and Development might be why the company Behind it is keeping the details of its Developers under apps after all the last Thing the project wants is to lose its Top talent to equally well capitalized Competitors and this relates to the Second thing to note It’s very rare that a crypto project Comes up with its own virtual machine For smart contracts almost all of the VMS are variants of ethereum’s virtual Machine Believe it or not but it’s aptos’s move VM that makes it a Solana Killer by Solana’s own admission in a panel Discussion earlier this year Solana Founder Anatoly yakovenko tacitly Admitted that the Solana team is Extremely nervous about the introduction Of a competing execution layer for smart Contracts Anatoly is also hyper aware of How developer friendly the move Programming language is This is in stark contrast to the Developer experience on Solana which Anatoly has likened to quote eating Glass To make things worse Solana is coded in Rust and you’ll recall move is based on Rust this makes it easy for developers From Solana’s ecosystem to migrate to

Aptos’s the same applies for developers Working on near protocol and polkadot However the crypto project that’s most Of risk of being killed by Aptos is Actually flow that’s because flow is Coded In Cadence which is based on move If you watched our video about flow You’ll know that it actually worked with DM’s developers to develop Cadence You’ll also know that flow uses a Multi-node architecture that separates The collection ordering processing and Verification of transactions on its Blockchain for efficiency As it so happens Aptos does something Similar with its own transaction process Which is outside the scope of this video Now I’ll just mention the third thing to Note and that’s the tokens on the Aptos Blockchain which are called coins for Some reason are apparently controlled by The entity that issues them what this Means is that any token on the Aptos Blockchain can be frozen burned and or Minted at will by whoever created it This seems to be an intentional design Choice as Muhammad mentioned in an October panel discussion that the Aptos Blockchain can be compliant with Regulations just like DM make of that What you will Now when it comes to tokenomics nobody Actually knew what the tokenomics of Apt Would look like until shortly before it

Started trading this was perhaps the Biggest red flag for the crypto Community who questioned how crypto Exchanges could possibly list a coin That had just published its tokonomics So apt is used to pay for transaction Fees on the Aptos blockchain apt is also Used for staking and is used for On-chain governance of the Aptos Blockchain governance is currently Limited to validators but will Eventually be expanded to delegators as Well the APT coin had an initial supply Of 1 billion around 13.5 percent of this Initial Supply was allocated to early Investors 16.5 percent was allocated to the Aptos Foundation 19 was allocated to core Contributors which presumably means Aptos labs the remaining 51 was set Aside for the Aptos community The vesting schedules for these entities Can be seen here for those just Listening in the APT allocated to core Contributors and investors will only be Investing after one year this means the Only apt in circulation for the first Year will come from that allocated to The Aptos community According to the Aptos Explorer around 180 million apt coins are currently in Circulation this is significantly fewer Than the 130 million apt noted by coin Market cap and coin gecko

Then again it’s not clear whether all The 180 million apt coins not being Staked are in circulation from what I Can tell coin market cap and coin gecko Got the details about apt’s initial Supply from the tokenomics post by the Aptos Foundation it notes that 125 Million apt were made immediately Available to the community and 5 million Apt were made immediately available to The foundation Of the 125 million apt that was Allocated to the community 20 million Was airdropped to early testnet users After apt started trading the rest who Knows what’s more is that apt has a Seven percent inflation rate with no Maximum Supply and it looks like apt Supply has already increased by over 2 Million This is because of the roughly 820 Million staked apt that I alluded to a Few moments ago what’s scary is that the Aptos Foundation notes that staking Rewards are quote not subject to Restrictions on distribution this means The early investors the team and the Foundation can sell their staking Rewards did I mention that the Aptos Foundation and Aptos Labs custody the APT allocated to the Aptos community That’s more than 51 of the initial Supply and it looks like they’re staking This ABT too that is a lot of money when

You do the maths on the bright side all Transaction fees are burned and apt’s Inflation will decline by 1.5 annually Until it hits 3.25 which is estimated to Take 50 years meanwhile the APT Initially allocated to the team early Investors the foundation and the Community will finish vesting in late 2032. Now the timeline to be on the lookout For is late 2023 this is when the big Vesting Cliffs will begin the worst of Them will happen in 2024 which is Coincidentally around the time the next Crypto Bull Run should begin you can Find out how bad the current bear Market Could get using the link in the Description in terms of price action There isn’t much I can say about apt Just yet because it’s a brand new Cryptocurrency even so at first glance Aptos looks grossly overvalued a market Cap of over 1 billion and a fully Diluted market cap of over 9 billion Upon closer examination however it does Look like some fundamentals are starting To form according to the Aptos Explorer There are over 1.7 million wallet Addresses and chances are that number Will be over 2 million by the time you See this video to put things into Perspective cardano has around 2.3 Million wallet addresses according to The Ada stat Explorer this means that

Aptos is on track to surpass cardano by Number of users within two weeks of Launch cardano’s main net went live over Five years ago that is some serious Adoption the thing is that the number of Wallet addresses on Aptos doesn’t Necessarily correspond to the number of Users That’s why I prefer to look at downloads Of any web or mobile wallets associated With a crypto in this case aptos’s Petra And Martian wallets have over 1 million Downloads combined on Chrome alone This would be an impressive statistic Were it not for the fact that defy Lama Suggests there’s only around 17 million Dollars of total value locked in aptos’s Dozen D5 protocols what’s frustrating is That defy Lama statistics are also Inconsistent with the stats on the Website of the Aptos dapps for example Liquid apt staking protocol Tortuga has Nearly three billion dollars in total Value locked with over 330 million apt Deposited this suggests that some early Investors team members and maybe even The Aptos Foundation are secretly liquid Staking this detail isn’t noted in apt’s Tokenomics if this is true then it means You probably can’t trust the tvl on any D5 protocol on Aptos which supports Tortuga’s liquid staked apt that’s Because it would be very easy for early Investors team members or the Aptos

Foundation to fake a high tvl using Their liquid staked apt spooky stuff On that note Tortuga seems to be the Only way that apt holders can currently Delegate to validators this begs the Question of which validators Tortuga is Delegating to it also begs the question Of who is running the largest validators Given that they’re staking almost Identical amounts of Apt what I’m Wondering is what the minimum and Maximum stake for validators is aptos’s Documentation is unclear on this along With the Locking and unlocking time for The APT coin what is clear is that there Is no slashing risk for misbehavior so At least all the VCS won’t have to worry About losing their precious apt it would Also be nice to know exactly how many Dapps there are on the Aptos and how Many unique wallets are actually using Them Dap radar hasn’t started tracking Aptos Daps yet but the DAP list in the Martian Wallet suggests there are at least 20 up And running not bad for a brand new Crypto project Unfortunately this doesn’t change the Fact that we are in the middle of a Crypto bear Market that’s likely to last For at least another year The harsh reality is that almost all Apt’s price action has so far been Driven by speculation not organic

Adoption Luckily Aptos has lots of Milestones Ahead of it the closest thing Aptos has To a roadmap is a blog post from March This year titled quote the Aptos Vision The tldr is that Aptos wants to scale to Support billions of users and every use Case you can think of just like every Other new crypto the difference is that Aptos actually has the tech to do it That doesn’t mean Aptos will scale Overnight however the team and Founders Mentioned many times that Aptos would be Incomplete out of the gates I reckon most of the issues I’ve Identified so far can be attributed to The fact that Aptos is still very much In development so don’t take them all Too seriously The first major upgrade to Aptos is Expected to happen later this year or in The first quarter of next year this is Consistent with a note in aptos’s Documentation which implies that the Validator requirements will be increased Significantly at the start of 2023 and It suggests that aptos’s speed will Increase significantly Now additional Aptos Milestones can be Found in amas and interviews with the Aptos team and its Founders I’ll Reiterate that these amas and interviews Are few in number and surprisingly Difficult to find

These amas were on limited non-english Language YouTube channels because there Is no official Aptos Channel In an AMA from April the Aptos team Revealed that the project is looking to Partner with other big tech companies Besides Google at the same time the Aptos team revealed that it wants to Implement privacy preserving Technologies to its blockchain in the Future I reckon it’s one or the other In September Avery explained that Aptos Will eventually have a unique fee market For each dap and use case on Aptos this Is very cool and very logical because it Will allow Aptos to remain resilient to The kinds of DDOS attacks that have Taken Solana offline while Simultaneously keeping transaction fees Low In October Avery explained that Aptos Will have a major upgrade every four to Six months this is to ensure that the Blockchain will remain future proof Avery also explained that Aptos will Start sharding its blockchain once it Starts to become too bloated something That ethereum is also planning now I was Hoping to find a few more milestones in Aptos’s governance Forum but there was Nothing about aptos’s Improvement Proposals funnily enough I somehow Managed to find a link to aptos’s Governance portal for validators there

Was only one governance proposal to Reduce voting power So this brings me to the concerns I have About Aptos and by now you’ll know that I have quite a few My biggest concern is the ridiculous Disconnect between the supposed quality Of the project and its transparency and Organization I mean Aptos has Technically been in development since 2017. it had access to unlimited Resources for research and development For years it raised 350 million dollars Without a white paper or tokenomics and There are literally 350 people working For Aptos Labs supposedly Pardon my French but how the holy hell Has Aptos still not hammered out the Tokenomics of the APT coin why did our Research team have to go digging through Every single link and blog post to find Information that should be on the front Page of the Aptos website why is there No YouTube channel who is running the Validator nodes how come you can’t see The details of the tokens and nfts on The Aptos blockchain where is the Information about which crypto wallets Belong to Aptos labs and the Aptos Foundation There’s no way apt’s Supply is Distributed as equitably as the Explorer Suggests and don’t even get me started About the allegations of Aptos shutting

Down its Discord Channel and other Socials when people started asking these Kinds of questions or about how all the Amas seem to be restricted to Discord And not published anywhere else My second concern about Aptos is almost As big and that’s the crypto Project’s Mission I still don’t quite understand What aptos’s end game is and it’s not Just me Massari CEO Ryan selkis was asking what Crypto Niche Aptos is trying to claim or The angle it’s trying to take at the Recent mainnet conference he didn’t Really get an answer As far as I can tell the Aptos vision of Cryptocurrency is a maximalist one where Everything is built on the Aptos Blockchain I haven’t seen or heard any Discussion about interoperability with Other cryptocurrencies only Interoperability with big tech companies And the existing Financial system this Attitude comes at a time when crypto VCS Are betting on a multi-chain future with Projects like Cosmos that’s because they Know there is no way for everything to Be built on a single blockchain unless It’s extremely centralized and at that Point you’re not dealing with a Cryptocurrency anymore From where I’m standing extreme Centralization looks like the path that Aptos wants to take

All the talk of decentralization just Seems to be an attempt to get retail Investors on board to be blunt the Aptos Team is not even good at selling these Talking points and it might be because They don’t really believe them This ties into my third concern and That’s regulation DM died a brutal death And if Aptos is in fact a de facto Continuation of DM then it is doomed to Suffer the same fate Regulators might be Biased but they’re not stupid Speaking of which I am shocked that U.S Exchanges like coinbase listed apt I am By no means an expert in Securities laws And this is purely speculation but I Have been watching the SEC for a long Time Apt seems to tick every box on the sec’s Target list The only thing that could protect Aptos Is the unprecedented amount of backing It has from both Wall Street aligned Crypto VCS and big Tech both parties are Powerful lobbyists and they will make Sure their golden geese don’t get caught In any regulatory Nets In some then I have to say that I’m Extremely skeptical about Aptos at this Point in time there is no question that Aptos is on the bleeding edge of web3 But it doesn’t seem to be seriously Interested in the core values of Cryptocurrency if anything it seeks to

Cement the values of web 2 using Blockchain technology And that’s all for today’s video about Aptos if you found it helpful smash that Like button to help others find it if You want to make sure you don’t miss the Next one subscribe to the channel and Ping that notification Bell While you wait for the next video to hit The tube you can check out coin beer Eclipse for more content like this or Check out the coin Bureau podcast for In-depth crypto discussions You can also follow me on Twitter tiktok And Instagram for memes and amas and Join my telegram channel for juicy Crypto updates every single day If you want to know what cryptos I hold As part of my portfolio and what I see Coming next for the crypto Market Subscribe to My Weekly Newsletter And if you want to support what we do Head on over to the coin Bureau merch Store and get yourself something that Suits you links to all of these Resources and more will be down in the Description thank you all so much for Watching and I’ll see you in the next One till then stay cool stay safe And stay crypto