Aptos: What Is It and What Makes It a VC Darling?

Representatives of the cryptocurrency community are always on the lookout for and interested in investing in various projects. This is because, with every new successful project in blockchain technology, something fresh is born.
We will talk about a new project called Aptos, the first block of which was launched on October 12, 2022, and the project has already made a lot of noise during this time.

What Is Aptos?

Aptos is a Layer-1 proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain technology that uses the Move programming language and a virtual machine (MoveVM) to develop a dApp. APT is a native token for network commissions, stakes, and validator management.
The Aptos blockchain is designed with scalability, security, reliability, and upgradability as key principles to address these challenges. More than 350 developers around the world have been involved in the development of the Aptos blockchain over the past three years. The project offers innovative technologies in consensus, smart contract development, system security, performance, and decentralization. Combining these technologies will bring Web 3.0 to the general public.

What Sets Aptos Apart?

1. Aptos blockchain is embedded in the system and uses the Move language to execute transactions quickly and securely. Move is a Rust-based programming language. It also provides additional security to the smart contract terms.
2. The Aptos data model supports flexible key management and hybrid escrow options. In addition, the transparency of pre-signed transactions and convenient customer service protocols provide a more secure and reliable user experience.
3. By achieving high throughput and low latency, Aptos blockchain implements a modular approach to key stages of transaction processing. Transaction propagation, blockchain metadata ordering, parallel transaction execution, batch storage, and ledger certification occur simultaneously. This approach fully utilizes all possible physical resources, increases hardware efficiency, and enables highly parallel execution.
4. Unlike other parallel execution mechanisms, which violate atomicity by requiring initial knowledge of data to read and write, the Aptos blockchain imposes no such constraints on developers. As a result, it can effectively maintain atomicity for arbitrarily complex transactions, providing higher throughput and lower latency for real-world applications and simplifying development.
5. Aptos modular architecture supports client flexibility and optimization for frequent and instantaneous updates. In addition, the Aptos blockchain provides protocols for managing changes in the chain to quickly implement new technological innovations and support new Web3 usage scenarios.
6. The Aptos blockchain is undergoing experimental preparation for future scaling initiatives beyond the performance of individual validators: its modular design and parallel execution mechanism support internal validator fragmentation, and uniform state fragmentation provides the potential for horizontal performance scaling without creating additional complexity for node operators.

How Does It Work?

To achieve the high standards of reliability and security inherent in the idea of Aptos, its blockchain is based on some of these basic principles:

Move Programming Language

Move provides fast and secure execution, easy verifiability, and mechanical analysis. This began with the Aptos blockchain predecessor and continues to evolve with the project.

High Throughput and Parallel Transaction Processing

• Provides extremely high throughput and low latency through a batch, pipeline, and parallel transaction processing approach.
• Enables new parallel transaction processing, unlike previous parallel execution mechanisms, which require advanced knowledge of read and write data locations.
• Block-STM provides new parallel transaction processing that effectively provides atomicity for arbitrarily complex transactions.

Optimization and Implementation

• Optimize performance and decentralization by quickly changing the set of participation weight validators and reputation tracking.
• Introducing upgrade and configuration capabilities into core design concepts.

Aptos Team

The Aptos team is an experienced, cohesive team of specialists, including engineers, researchers, strategists, designers, and developers.

• Mo Shaikh is the former director of strategy at ConsenSys and CEO of Meridio. He now works as a consultant and advisor for many companies.
• Avery Ching has more than 10 years of software development experience. He has also served as vice president of Apache Giraph.
• Austin Virts, former head of marketing at Solana.

Investors and Partners

Aptos has had many successful funding rounds in which many large investment funds have invested. In February 2022, Aptos raised $200 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with major investors including Tiger Global, Katie Haun, Multicoin Capital, FTX Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, and PayPal Ventures rushing to fund the project. On July 25, 2022, Aptos closed a $150 million Series A round led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto with participation from Binance Labs.
Additionally, Aptos partnered with Google Cloud, which stores data to simplify node launching—it takes only 15 minutes to set up and run a node.

APT Token

Aptos token (APT) is a management and utility token. It is based on the native blockchain and the Aptos token standard. Its main purpose is to facilitate liquidity by defining exchangeable, semi-exchangeable, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in a single, smart contract. This property greatly facilitates the storage, transfer, and transaction of tokens. It thus contributes to the main goal of universal interoperability in the Aptos ecosystem.
The Aptos token standard also reduces resource usage and overhead, resulting in lower costs for creating many NFTs or other tokens by allowing tokens to reuse metadata on the circuit for certain interchangeable tokens.

Conclusion

Based on all of the above, Aptos has unique and promising characteristics that you cannot find in other Layer-1 protocols. The project has the potential to surpass Ethereum and Solana in scalability and network capacity earning the title ‘Solana killer.’ In addition, the project is supported by many large investment funds, especially Binance and FTX.
However, the project is still in its infancy, so there is still a lot to consider before making any investment decision.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only. They are not intended to provide specific financial or investment advice. Guarda’s editorial team reminds you of the risk of speculation in all financial markets. All financial activities carried out by you are made at your own risk.

FAQ

1. What is Aptos?

Aptos is a first-level blockchain that combines the unique elements of the former Diem blockchain and Move, a Rust-based programming language developed by Meta.

2. Who is part of the Aptos team?

The Aptos team is an experienced, close-knit group of professionals, including engineers, researchers, strategists, designers, and developers, such as Austin Wirths, former head of marketing at Solana, who recently joined the team.

3. Is Aptos Worth the Investment?

Aptos is endowed with promising parameters absent in other Layer-1 protocols. The Aptos project has surpassed Ethereum and Solana regarding scalability and network capacity. It is still at an early stage. And it is too early to talk about the success of the investment. However, the project has some potential.

4. How is Aptos financed?

Aptos has had many successful funding rounds, with many large venture capitalists investing in the project.