Aptos Foundation has unveiled a tokenomics reform plan that would lower staking rewards, raise transaction fees, and introduce a hard supply cap, as it looks to shift APT from a subsidy-driven model to one tied more closely to network usage.
Under the proposal, the annualized staking reward rate would be reduced from 5.19% to 2.6%. The foundation also plans to submit a governance proposal to raise transaction fees to 10 times the current level and set a hard cap of 2.1 billion APT on total supply. Once the relevant proposal is approved, the protocol would not be able to mint tokens beyond that ceiling without community approval.
Foundation to permanently lock and stake 210 million APT
Alongside the supply cap proposal, the Aptos Foundation said it will permanently lock and stake 210 million APT. It also said future ecosystem grants will be tied more closely to project performance and key milestones.
According to the foundation, APT’s current circulating supply is about 1.196 billion tokens. The four-year unlock schedule for early investors and core contributors is due to end in October 2026, and the foundation expects annualized token unlocks to decline by about 60%.
Fee burns could rise with onchain activity and Decibel
The foundation said network fee burns are expected to expand as onchain transaction activity increases and decentralized trading platform Decibel launches.
Decibel uses a fully onchain execution model, with order submission, matching, and cancellation all handled onchain. The foundation said annual APT burns could exceed 32 million tokens once the number of markets on Decibel rises above 100 next year, with that figure increasing further if transaction throughput climbs.
All transaction fees on the Aptos network are currently paid in APT and permanently burned.
Open-market buybacks are also under consideration
The Aptos Foundation said it is also exploring a plan to buy back APT in the open market. Funding could come from the foundation’s existing cash reserves as well as future revenue from licensing and ecosystem investments.
The foundation said that if lower staking rewards, reduced early-token unlocks, higher fee burns, the permanent lockup of 210 million APT, and potential buybacks are implemented together, APT burns could exceed new issuance and push token supply into a deflationary phase.
Several parts of the plan still require governance approval or more detailed implementation rules. The foundation said it expects supply pressure to decline significantly starting in 2027.