Aptos, a highly anticipated layer 1 proof-of-stake blockchain network developed by previous developers of the Diem blockchain, made its mainnet launch on Tuesday only to be met with criticism for its low transaction speed.
Aptos enjoyed early anticipation as an inheritor of Meta’s (formerly Facebook’s) stablecoin project’s technology and promised a high transaction speed to rival Solana, currently the fastest blockchain network, making it a potential so-called “Solana killer.”
But the network runs at a speed of around 20 transactions per second (TPS), far below the claimed speed of 100,000 TPS in its finalized version.
The newcomer cryptocurrency’s entry amid the Crypto Winter saw it plunge in value early Wednesday in its debut on major exchanges.
One day after its launch, Aptos scrambled to respond, announcing on Wednesday it will distribute 20 million of its token APT to 110,235 network participants.
Aptos said the testnet users or those who have minted NFTs on their testnet are eligible to claim the airdrop, while Twitter user “Aptos Insiders” said that the users can get between 150 to 300 APTs.
Aptos is now banning most of its Discord channel participants from speaking, as tested by Forkast. The link on the Aptos homepage for joining the Discord group is unavailable, which means new users are losing one of the major channels to join the community discussion.
APT is currently tradable on five crypto exchanges of Binance, BTCEX, Bitrue, OKX and MEXC as of 10 a.m. Hong Kong time. The trading volume has passed US$1.1 billion as of 4 p.m. Hong Kong time, according to CoinMarketCap.
The price of Aptos fell to a one-day low of US$6.68 near 12 noon Hong Kong time from the opening price of US$8.55. Now the token trades at US$7.44 as of 4 p.m. Hong Kong time, down 10.88% from the morning, according to CoinMarketCap.
Flopped expectation？
On the first day of launch, Aptos’ network speed was only 4 transactions per second (TPS), as reported by various media. It meant the network was even slower than the oldest blockchain network, Bitcoin (at 7 TPS).
See related article: Aptos raises US$150 mln from FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto
Aptos said on Twitter that it “has been performing as expected” after the mainnet went live on Tuesday in response to crypto media outlet Cointelegraph’s request for comment. Aptos hadn’t responded to Forkast’s comment request as of press time.
However, it may be relevant that most of the decentralized applications (dApps) on the Aptos mainnet are still not active, according to its page introducing the ecosystem. DApps are usually the major producers of transactions on a blockchain network.
As of the press time, four dApps announced to be live on the mainnet include the wallet Pontem, the liquidity staking protocol Ditto Finance, the oracle Pyth and the domain name provider Aptos Name Service (ANS).
Before the official launch of the mainnet, Aptos raised $400 million from investors including well-known crypto venture funds such as FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, a16z and Multicoin Capital, according to FTX research.
See related article: Cross-chain bridge Wormhole, oracle Pyth deployed on Aptos