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It is an upcoming blockchain, but what is Aptos? Let’s take a look at 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 that 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, to those who still like to harp about a third or fourth industrial revolution that, they assure us, is happening right now, it is 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, it 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, while some people might be concerned about how truly secure their blockchain networks are. 

Another thing that might well end up giving people who are not entirely 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 their plans to have their own cryptocurrency. The way that a major name in the world of tech 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 an upcoming 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 is that its founders, CEO Mo Shaikh and CTO Avery Ching were former employees of Meta, 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 of 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 is yet to be released – Photo: Shutterstock

One important thing to point out is that there is relatively little information about the nature of native token Aptos will have once it is launched at an unspecified date. This might well serve as a potential warning sign for would-be investors, with a blockchain’s native coin often serving as a key selling point for any upcoming network. That said, there will be a crypto to go with the blockchain, and not just because every blockchain or blockchain based network needs to have its own cryptocurrency. In 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.

The whitepaper suggests that there will be 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.”

It is important to note at this stage that there has been no firm date for the launch of the Aptos mainnet or the aptos cryptos. We have asked Aptos, but have not received a reply yet. 

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 will do 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. Talking of crypto investors, the fact that the system does not have a firm launch date, coupled with the lack of information as to when its native tokens will be available for people to buy, might also move the scheme from a must-buy to a wait-and-see. As always with cryptocurrency, it makes sense to be careful if you are considering investing in aptos.

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Further reading

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB0A8RdqtR4