What is Aptos? | Everything you need to know about Aptos Blockchain

There 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 weren’t for this technological concept, the idea of ​​a kind of decentralized ledger where every transaction and change is recorded, but there is no overriding authority controlling it, it is highly unlikely that we would have crypto at all. Well, maybe we would have ripple (XRP), but pretty much every other cryptocurrency, be it a coin or a token, wouldn’t exist without the blockchain being there to support it.

Regardless, it can be argued – especially and sometimes too enthusiastically, by proponents of Web 3.0, the next, or possibly current, phase of the internet – that the blockchain is the future, and soon we’ll all be doing everything we can on it.

However, there is one problem. That problem may ultimately either be blockchain itself, or for those who still like to harp on about a third or fourth industrial revolution that, they assure us, is happening right now, it’s up to people using the internet’s lack of education on what could potentially be seen as a relatively arcane piece of technical knowledge. In any case, it remains that many people find the blockchain somewhat confusing. It’s not exactly like the system always makes itself so easy to understand, with jargon dominating, plus there’s the issue of networks slowing down as they get busier, while some people may be concerned about how secure their blockchain networks really are .

Another thing that may well end up giving non-experts concerns about the future of the blockchain is the way Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, canceled their plans to have their own cryptocurrency. The way a big name in the tech world decided to walk away from crypto and blockchain may well have cast doubt in some minds as to the legitimacy and effectiveness of these two things.

What is Aptos?

Aptos is an upcoming blockchain designed to solve these problems. As the system’s whitepaper states: “We present the Aptos blockchain, designed with scalability, security, reliability and upgradeability as key principles, to address these challenges. Aptos blockchain has been developed over the past three years by over 350+ developers worldwide. It offers new and emerging innovations in consensus, smart contract design, system security, performance and decentralization. The combination of these technologies will provide a fundamental building block to bring web3 to the masses.”

Something that is also related to what we talked about earlier is that the system is that the founders, CEO Mo Shaikh and CTO Avery Ching were former employees of Meta, responsible for the, ultimately canceled, attempts to create the Diem blockchain and Novi crypto wallet. Although these plans never came to fruition, the skills and technology that were already there are being used for this new project.

As a blog post by Shaikh said: “We’ve had the luxury of thinking about these problems alongside some of the brightest engineers in the world for years. Since leaving Meta (formerly Facebook) we’ve been able to put our ideas into motion , ditching bureaucratic red tape and building an entirely new network from the ground up that brings them to life.We are now ready to socialize these ideas more widely and start deploying the infrastructure that we have perfected.

“Aptos will be partly built on the technology we have developed in the open for the past three years. Aptos uses Move, the secure and reliable language originally developed for Diem. The ideas we conceived then are still relevant and will serve as an important basis for a secure, scalable and upgradeable Web3. Our plans for decentralization and permissionless access are evolving rapidly and will be developed in the open.”

Aptos is designed to run a variety of decentralized applications (DApps) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and users can be assured of a secure key recovery system.

If you want to know the Aptos lexical definition, the system takes its name from the Ohlone language word for “The People”.

The Aptos cryptos

Aptos is not yet released – Photo: Shutterstock

An important thing to point out is that there is relatively little information about the nature of the native token Aptos will have when it launches on an unspecified date. This could well serve as a potential warning sign for potential investors, with a blockchain native coin often serving as a key selling point for any up-and-coming network. That said, there will be a crypto for the blockchain, and not just because each blockchain or blockchain-based network must have its own cryptocurrency. In a blog post dated September 19, 2022, the system said that people working on the current phase of the test network will be paid with 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 intended for simple, type-safe and fungible assets”, while the aptos token is designed to both be a non-fungible token and work with other NFTs. As the whitepaper states: “The token standard is designed to create an NFT or a semi-fungible or a fungible non-decimal token, with rich metadata and features. A token definition of this type can be quickly iterated to respond to 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 network or the aptos cryptos. We have asked Aptos, but have not received an answer yet.

Final thoughts

Before we wrap up, a few things to point out. While the background of the people behind Aptos is strong, there is still a lack of clarity about what the blockchain will do to make it stand out from the competition. There are many separate blockchains out there and it’s a bit hard to see what Aptos will do to get people to invest in it instead of the many well-established alternatives out there. Furthermore, for a blockchain that wants to help make the technology more popular and better used, the system has an awful lot of dense technical jargon, which can dissuade the more casual crypto investor. Speaking of crypto investors, the fact that the system does not have a fixed launch date, coupled with a lack of information about when its initial tokens will be available for people to buy, could also move the scheme from a must-buy to a wait-and-see. As always with cryptocurrency, it makes sense to be cautious if you are considering investing in aptos.

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