Aptos Labs officially launched its mainnet on October 17, 2022, marking the debut of a Layer 1 blockchain developed by former Meta Diem team members. Aptos uses the Move programming language (a Rust-based language) and claims a throughput of 130,000 transactions per second (TPS) thanks to parallel processing, directly competing with Solana and other high-performance networks.
Former Meta Team and Move Language
Aptos was created by Aptos Labs, co-founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, both former developers of Meta's Diem blockchain and Novi wallet. The Move language—originally designed for Diem—enables custom transaction logic and automated proofs, ensuring that only payer and receiver balances change during transfers. The Aptos team says Move has been co-designed with the Aptos blockchain over four years and is thoroughly tested.
Heavy VC Investment
Aptos completed two major funding rounds in 2022: $200 million in March led by a16z, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Tiger Global, and FTX Ventures; followed by $150 million in July from FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures, Superscrypt, and a16z. Total funding reached $350 million, giving Aptos a strong financial runway.
Technical Highlight: Block-STM Parallel Execution Engine
The core innovation is Block-STM, a parallel execution engine for smart contracts that processes transactions simultaneously. Like Solana, parallel execution enables high throughput, but Solana has faced multiple network outages. Aptos claims its technology is more robust after years of iterative development. As of launch day, the block explorer showed 1,769,380 transactions and a total supply of approximately 1 billion APT tokens.
Token and Market Status
The native token APT appears on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap but is listed as "Untracked Listing" with no price data. No exchange has officially listed APT yet, so traders must wait for future announcements. Aptos's roadmap includes NFTs, social, gaming, DeFi, and commerce, aiming to bring Web3 to the masses.
Mainnet Launch Controversy
According to CoinDesk, although Aptos Labs declared the network "live," its ecosystem is far from complete. Developers building on Aptos revealed that the genesis transaction occurred on October 12 and that the mainnet launch was "rushed." Critics question whether the project is being pushed forward prematurely under pressure from VC investors. Aptos will need to prove its technical maturity and attract real adoption to carve out a place in the competitive Layer 1 landscape.