What is Aptos? Your ultimate guide
By Peter Henn
Updated
It is a new blockchain, but what is Aptos? Let’s take a look and see what we can find out about this new platform.
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The problems with blockchains
In the world of cryptocurrency, the blockchain is king. If it was not for this technological concept – the idea of having a kind of decentralised ledger where every transaction and change is recorded but there is no overall authority controlling it – it is highly unlikely that we would have any cryptos at all. Well, maybe we would have Ripple (XRP), but pretty much every other cryptocurrency, whether it is a coin or a token, would not exist without the blockchain being there to support it.
Regardless, it could be argued – especially, and sometimes too enthusiastically, by proponents of Web 3.0, the next or possibly current stage of the internet – that the blockchain is The Future, and soon we will all do everything one could possibly do on it.
There is, however, one problem. That problem, ultimately, might either be the blockchain itself or – according to those who still like to harp on about a third or fourth industrial revolution that, they assure us, is happening right now – it might be down to the people who use the internet’s lack of education about what might, potentially, be seen as a relatively arcane piece of technical knowledge.
Either way, the fact remains that many people find the blockchain somewhat confusing. It is not exactly as if the system always makes itself that easy to understand, with jargon predominating, plus there is the issue of networks slowing down as they get busier. Some people might also be concerned about how truly secure their blockchain networks are.
Another thing that might give people who are not experts concerns over the future of the blockchain is the way in which Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, cancelled its plans to have its own cryptocurrency. The fact that a major name in the world of technology decided to move away from crypto and blockchain might well have cast doubt in some minds as to the legitimacy and effectiveness of those two things.
What is Aptos?
Aptos is a recently launched blockchain designed to solve these problems. As the system’s whitepaper says: “We present the Aptos blockchain, designed with scalability, safety, reliability, and upgradeability as key principles, to address these challenges. The Aptos blockchain has been developed over the past three years by over 350+ developers across the globe. It offers new and novel innovations in consensus, smart contract design, system security, performance and decentralisation. The combination of these technologies will provide a fundamental building block to bring Web3 to the masses.”
Something that also links in with what we were talking about earlier is that the system’s founders, CEO Mo Shaikh and CTO Avery Ching, were formerly employees of Meta, and responsible for the (ultimately cancelled) attempts to create the Diem blockchain and the Novi crypto wallet. While those plans never came to fruition, the skills and technology that were already there are being utilised for this new project.
As a blog post by Shaikh said: “We have had the luxury of thinking about these problems alongside some of the brightest engineers in the world for years. Since departing Meta (formerly Facebook) we have been able to put our ideas into motion, ditch bureaucratic red tape, and build an entirely new network from the ground up that brings them to fruition. We’re now ready to socialise those ideas more broadly and start shipping the infrastructure that we’ve been perfecting.
“Aptos will be built in part on the technology we developed in the open over the past three years. Aptos is using Move, the safe and reliable language originally developed for Diem. The ideas we conceived then are still relevant and will serve as an important foundation for a safe, scalable, upgradable Web3. Our plans for decentralisation and permissionless access are progressing quickly and will be developed in the open.”
Aptos is designed to run a variety of decentralised applications (dApps) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and users can be reassured by a secure key recovery system.
If you want to know the lexical Aptos definition, the system takes its name from the Ohlone language word for “The People”.
The Aptos cryptos
Aptos launched on 19 October 2022 – Photo: ShutterstockIn a blog post dated 19 September 2022, the system said that people working on the current stage of its testnet would be paid in what it described as “Aptos tokens”.
In fact, the whitepaper says there are not one but two Aptos cryptos. The Aptos coin is described as a “lightweight standard meant for simple, typesafe, and fungible assets,” while the Aptos token is designed to both be a non-fungible token and work with other NFTs.
As the whitepaper says: “The token standard is designed to create an NFT or a semi-fungible or a fungible non-decimal token, with rich metadata and functionalities. A token definition of this type can be iterated rapidly to respond to the platform and user requirements.”
Aptos (APT) was launched on 19 October 2022, but things did not go well for the coin. According to data from CoinGecko the crypto plummeted in its first few hours of operation, dropping from around $13.75 to somewhere around $9 before settling at around $7.20 at around lunchtime on 21 October.
Shaikh went on Twitter to claim that the platform had muted its Discord channel at the time of launch in order to protect against scams.
Final thoughts
Before we finish, some things to point out. While the background of the people behind Aptos is strong, there is still a lack of clarity as to what the blockchain is doing to make it stand out from its competitors. There are a lot of separate blockchains, and it is somewhat hard to see what it is that Aptos will do to get people to invest in it rather than in the many, well-established, alternatives that are out there.
Furthermore, for a blockchain that wants to help make the technology more popular and better used, the system features an awful lot of dense technical jargon, which may dissuade the more casual crypto investor. And talking of crypto investors, the token’s somewhat troubled launch may be enough to turn it from a must-buy to a wait-and-see.
As always with cryptocurrency, if you are considering investing in Aptos, it makes sense to be careful.
FAQs
How does the Aptos blockchain work?
The Aptos blockchain works by storing information as a resource, potentially allowing it to be more secure.
What language does Aptos use?
The Aptos whitepaper is available in both English and Korean.
Is Aptos decentralised?
Since blockchains are decentralised then, at least in theory, Aptos is decentralised. It does, however, depend on how you define decentralisation, because there are some blockchain enthusiasts who might take umbrage at the idea that the platform has two named founders.
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