Aptos (APT) is the native gas and staking asset of Aptos, an independent Layer-1 blockchain built with the Move programming language rather than a token issued on another chain.
Launched in October 2022 by Aptos Labs, the network centers on Move-based smart contracts, with the Aptos Foundation stewarding ecosystem development. As of 2026-08-31, APT trades near $0.52 with a market capitalization of approximately $449.8 million.
Aptos differentiates itself through the Move programming language, originally developed for Meta's Diem project, which emphasizes resource-oriented safety for digital assets compared with EVM-based smart contract chains.
The network has attracted stablecoin activity, with USDT supply on Aptos surpassing $1.1 billion and accounting for roughly 79% of the chain's total stablecoin value as of 2026-08-31. Aptos has also been cited among protocols directing fee revenue toward token buybacks, and it launched an optional transaction-privacy feature, Confidential APT, aimed at institutional users.
APT is a dual-purpose token, functioning as both the network's utility gas asset and its staking/governance token.
APT has a hard-capped maximum supply of 2.1 billion tokens, approved by an on-chain governance vote after which no further minting is possible. Circulating supply is approximately 858,244,987 APT, about 40.3% of that cap, as of 2026-08-31.
Unlocks span roughly 264 events from October 2022 through as far as the 2040s, with a notable unlock scheduled for September 12, 2026. The hard cap makes net emission disinflationary toward zero rather than perpetually inflationary.
Aptos Labs raised approximately $350 million in private venture funding during 2022 before its mainnet launched that October; no public ICO was identified.
A $200 million seed round closed in March 2022 with participation from a16z, Tiger Global, Multicoin Capital and FTX Ventures, followed by a $150 million Series A in July 2022 co-led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, joined by a16z, Apollo, Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures and Superscrypt. The APT token unlock schedule began October 11, 2022, coinciding with mainnet launch rather than an earlier founding-stage distribution.
Aptos is its own independent Layer-1 blockchain, not deployed on top of another network, and uses the Move programming language for its smart contract framework.
The network is secured by a proof-of-stake validator set, in which participants stake APT to operate validators, with validation influence proportional to the amount staked.
Aptos was founded in 2021 by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, both former Meta (Facebook) employees who had worked on Meta's Diem/Novi blockchain project before its shutdown.
Mo Shaikh served as CEO until stepping down in December 2024 to pursue a new venture, remaining as a strategic adviser; his background included financial services, private equity and leading blockchain partnerships for Novi at Meta. Avery Ching succeeded him as CEO in December 2024, having spent over a decade (2011-2021) as a Principal Software Engineer at Facebook/Meta, including work on Graph Search, and having co-founded Apache Giraph at Yahoo.
Aptos is developed and maintained by two related entities: Aptos Labs, the for-profit engineering company founded in 2021, and the Aptos Foundation, a nonprofit-style entity that stewards the ecosystem.
Aptos Labs builds the core protocol, while the Foundation is registered in the Cayman Islands (190 Elgin Avenue, George Town, Grand Cayman) and manages treasury and grants. The project originated directly from the wind-down of Meta's Diem stablecoin/blockchain initiative, with several early team members, including both co-founders, coming from that effort.
Aptos uses on-chain, stake-weighted governance: proposals are drafted publicly as Aptos Improvement Proposals (AIPs) on GitHub, then submitted on-chain through the aptos_governance Move module for community voting.
Voting power is proportional to staked APT rather than one-token-one-vote, and a proposer's own stake is locked for the full voting period to deter spam; proposals can pass early if support exceeds 50% of total supply before the deadline. A 2026 on-chain vote set a fixed ceiling on APT's total issuance, and AIP-110 has proposed lowering the passage threshold from 400 million to 300 million APT.
Aptos shipped Confidential APT, an optional selective-transaction-privacy feature, on mainnet in 2026, targeting institutional and enterprise privacy needs.
Aptos Labs commissioned CertiK and Halborn to audit the Move Virtual Machine, with multiple critical issues identified and remediated around mainnet launch. OtterSec separately conducted manual review and fuzz testing against the Move VM and Aptos Framework.
CertiK remains Aptos's primary continuous auditor via its Skynet monitoring, and Aptos Labs runs a bug bounty of up to $1,000,000 for critical vulnerabilities. In 2026, oracle provider Switchboard halted operations on Aptos and Sui after a potential compromise, an incident unresolved in detail at time of reporting.