Aptos Airdrops Tokens to thousands in trading launch

Over 20 million APT tokens are ready to be claimed by 110,235 participants.

Aptos launches token

Aptos has launched its token – and early adopters are getting an airdrop.

The Move-based Layer 1 blockchain announced late Tuesday night that it would provide early network participants with an allocation of APT tokens. A post on the official Aptos Twitter account explained that users who completed an application for an Aptos Incentivized Testnet or minted an APTOS:ZERO NFT on the blockchain’s testnet would be eligible for the airdrop. “If you are eligible to claim, you will receive an email from [email protected] in the next few hours,” the post said.

The 110,235 eligible addresses are each entitled to receive 150 APT. Several centralized exchanges, including FTX and Binance, have already opened spot trading markets and perpetual futures for the token. Since trading started around 2:00 UTC, APT has fallen from $13.73 to $8.25, representing a 39.9% decline per CoinGecko data. At the current APT price, the airdrop is worth about $1,237 per address.

Yesterday, Aptos launched its mainnet to much excitement in the crypto community. The blockchain has been heralded as a “Solana killer” due to its stated 100,000 transactions per second (Solana can only handle around 60,000). In addition, Apto’s development team includes several former Meta employees who worked on the company’s Diem stablecoin before the project was sold to Silvergate bank in early 2022.

But while the launch of the Aptos mainnet was successful, Aptos Labs, the company behind the blockchain, faced harsh criticism regarding its implementation. Many onlookers blamed the firm for not detailing Apto’s tokenomics before the green light for exchanges to start trading. “It’s not good that FTX/Binance etc all list Aptos with no tokenomics transparency at all. It should definitely be a prerequisite for listing something that users can have basic information about what they’re buying lol,” said UpOnly co -host Cobie on a Tuesday Twitter posts.

Since then, Aptos has published a blog post explaining how the APT token has been distributed. It revealed that nearly 50% of tokens were reserved for insiders, including venture capital investors, core team members and the Aptos Foundation. Today’s 20 million APT token airdrop represents 2% of the total supply.

Despite the criticism, enthusiasm for Aptos remains strong. Even considering the current “crypto winter”, the project has had no problem raising funds at an outsized value. In July, the firm secured $150 million from venture capital heavyweights such as Andreessen Horowitz, FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto. The latest funding round values ​​Aptos Labs at $2 billion.

Disclosure: At the time of writing this piece, the author owned ETH, SOL, APT and several other cryptocurrencies.