APT

Aptos

Layer 1

A fast Move-based Layer 1 that rebuilt its tokenomics in 2026, after a year in which APT lost three quarters of its value.

Battered, reforming v1.1 · as of 2026-10-21 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

Aptos works well technically and gained real products in 2026: the Decibel on-chain trading venue, ~$1.7–2.0B in stablecoins and a governance package with a 2.1B APT supply cap, 10x gas fees that are fully burned and halved staking rewards. The token has not followed: −74% over a year, −85% from the October 2025 high to the $0.52 low on 31 Aug, and about −83% over three years. Investor vesting ended on 12 Oct 2026, so new supply drops sharply, but burn still covers only a few percent of new APT each month.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$0.8323
+0.7% 24h · +9% 30d · CoinGecko 21 Oct
Market cap
$735.2M
rank #91 · FDV $1.01B
24h volume
$60.5M
8.2% of market cap
From ATH
−96%
ATH $19.92, Jan 2023
2026 YTD
−50%
$1.66 → $0.8323
Stablecoins
~$1.7–2.0B
on Aptos, May 2026 and DefiLlama

The last 12 months

$1$2$3$4Oct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNov2025-10-27: $3.5789$3.58 peak2026-01-14: $2.2483$2.252026-08-31: $0.5179$0.52 low2026-10-21: $0.8314$0.83112-month high at $3.582Decibel goes live32.1B APT supply cap passes410x gas, full burn live5$50M ecosystem commitment616M transactions in a day7Year low at $0.528Investor vesting ends9First smaller monthly unlock10Raptr and Block-STM V2
MarketProductGovernanceTokenomicsAdoptionTechUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 22 Oct 2025 to 21 Oct 2026.

Key events
  1. 1
    27 Oct 25 12-month high at $3.58. The top of the year; price then fell almost without pause into August.
  2. 2
    27 Feb 26 Decibel goes live. Aptos Labs-incubated order-book perps exchange launches on mainnet; >$1B volume by May.
  3. 3
    01 Mar 26 2.1B APT supply cap passes. Proposal 183 passes with 335M APT for, ~1.5k against, 39% turnout; part of the February Foundation package.
  4. 4
    Apr 26 10x gas, full burn live. Upgrade raises gas tenfold, burns all fees and cuts staking rewards from 5.19% to ~2.6% (exact date not confirmed).
  5. 5
    07 May 26 $50M ecosystem commitment. Foundation and Labs fund trading and AI products, including Decibel and the Shelby storage protocol.
  6. 6
    Jul 26 16M transactions in a day. Quarterly high in daily transactions, with fees still around $0.0005 each.
  7. 7
    31 Aug 26 Year low at $0.52. −86% from the October 2025 high; price rebounds to $0.83 by 23 Sep.
  8. 8
    12 Oct 26 Investor vesting ends. Last 11.31M APT tranche unlocks; price spikes to $0.90 then drops to $0.79 the next day.
  9. 9
    ~Nov First smaller monthly unlock. Only Community and Foundation pools release, ~4.54M APT a month through 2032.
  10. 10
    Soon Raptr and Block-STM V2. Named as 2026 roadmap items in third-party summaries; no official date found.

How a trade on Decibel flows through Aptos

Trader
Signs an order

Wallet submits a transaction with a small APT gas fee.

Validators
Order consensus

Staked validators agree on transaction order in well under a second.

Block-STM
Parallel execution

Non-conflicting transactions run side by side; conflicts are re-run.

Decibel
Order book matches

Move contract matches the order, usually against USDC or USDT.

Aptos
Final and fee burned

Block is final; the whole gas fee is burned.

Trader
Position updated

Balance and position change on-chain, readable by any app.

Where APT comes in: every transaction pays gas in APT and 100% of it is burned, and validators must stake APT and earn ~2.6% new APT for it. The trade itself settles in stablecoins, and gas is ~$0.0005, so even heavy trading burns little APT.

Usage and adoption

APT per month, late 2026
Burned (gas fees)
~174k
Staking emissions
~1.6M
Unlocks from Nov 2026
~4.54M
Unlocks until Oct 2026
~11.3M

Burn over 30 days is ~174k APT (Crypto Briefing, after the 10x gas change), about 11% of staking emissions of ~1.6M APT a month. Adding the ~4.54M APT monthly unlocks from Community and Foundation pools, burn covers ~3% of new supply. The grey bar is the old monthly unlock (last tranche 11 Oct 2026), shown for scale: new supply falls ~60% from November.

  • weak signal
    Gas burned
    ~174k APT / 30 days

    ≈ $145k a month at $0.83. Real paid usage, but tiny next to emissions.

  • strong signal
    Stablecoins
    ~$1.66–1.98B

    May 2026 report and DefiLlama snapshots, about half USDT. Real money parked on Aptos.

  • medium signal
    Tokenized RWAs
    ~$0.85B

    DefiLlama active RWA cap (undated snapshot); top-3 chain for RWAs in 2025.

  • medium signal
    Decibel volume
    >$1B cumulative

    Feb to May 2026. The flagship trading app, still small next to Hyperliquid.

  • weak signal
    DeFi TVL
    ~$120–130M

    DefiLlama. Small for a top-100 Layer 1; counts are snapshots, not dated.

Aptos has real balances (stablecoins and RWAs) and a working trading venue, but fees are so low that usage burns little APT. The token case rests on new supply falling after October, not on fee capture.

Project

What it is
A proof-of-stake Layer 1 live since October 2022, built by ex-Meta Diem engineers around the Move language and parallel execution (Block-STM). It positions itself as a "global trading engine" for on-chain markets, payments and tokenized assets.
Team
Aptos Labs builds the core protocol; co-founder Avery Ching has been CEO since co-founder Mo Shaikh stepped down in December 2024. The Aptos Foundation runs grants and governance. Backers include a16z, Multicoin and Coinbase Ventures.
Technology
Block-STM parallel execution, the Velociraptr consensus upgrade (block time ~100 ms to ~60 ms, Dec 2025) and sub-second finality. Transactions cost ~$0.0005 even after the 10x gas increase.
Traction
Decibel, an on-chain order-book perps exchange incubated by Aptos Labs, went live on 27 Feb 2026 and passed $1B cumulative volume by May. Stablecoins ~$1.66B (May) to ~$1.9B (DefiLlama); RWAs ~$0.85B; DeFi TVL only ~$120–130M. A single day in July passed 16M transactions.
Competitors
Sui (also Move-based), Solana, Hyperliquid for perps, and Ethereum L2s for stablecoins and RWAs.
Key risks
Fees are tiny, so usage barely moves the token; DeFi TVL is small next to stablecoin and RWA balances; ecosystem growth leans on Foundation and Labs spending (another $50M committed in May 2026).
Roadmap
Remaining 2026 focus per third-party summaries: Raptr consensus, Block-STM V2, framework-level order books (CLOB) and cross-chain accounts; Shelby hot storage for AI workloads. No firm official dates found.

Token performance

1-year return (22 Oct 2025 → 21 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
APT
-74%
BTC
-22%
ETH
-35%

APT fell about three times as much as BTC over 12 months. Over 3 years it is about −83% (from ~$5 in mid-October 2023, when it traded around $4.75–5) vs BTC ~+179% (from ~$29.7k) and ETH ~+53% (from ~$1.6k); 3-year figures are researched by hand because the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$0.52 low (31 Aug) to $2.25 high (14 Jan), daily closes; now $0.83 (−50% YTD)
12-month drawdown
−86%, from $3.58 (27 Oct 2025) to $0.52 (31 Aug 2026)
Liquidity
$61M traded in 24h, 8.2% of market cap; rank #91
Relative strength
Lagged BTC by ~52 points over a year; +61% off the August low, but the 12 Oct vesting-end spike to $0.90 faded the next day
ATH check ATH check passed. The $19.92 high (26 Jan 2023) came ~100 days after the October 2022 launch, just outside the 90-day window, and price came back near $19 in March 2024, so the ATH is used as the reference.

Tokenomics

Supply
~1.21B APT total, ~883M circulating (73%). A hard cap of 2.1B APT was approved by governance on 1 Mar 2026; before that supply had no maximum.
Inflation
Staking rewards were cut from 5.19% to ~2.6% in the 2026 package. Emissions are still about 1.6M APT a month, per Crypto Briefing.
Unlocks
The 4-year investor and core-contributor vesting ended with the 11.31M APT tranche on 11–12 Oct 2026. From November only Community and Foundation pools unlock: ~4.54M APT a month (1/120 of ~332M remaining) through 2032.
Utility
Gas for every transaction, staking for validators and delegators, and on-chain governance votes.
Concentration
Foundation, Labs and early investors held most of genesis supply; the Foundation proposed locking 210M APT permanently in staking. Governance turnout was 39% on the cap vote.
Sinks
100% of gas is burned (10x gas since the April 2026 upgrade): ~174k APT in 30 days, ~1.9M APT burned in total. No US spot ETF; Bitwise filed in March 2025 but no launch found.

Bull case

With investor vesting done and staking rewards halved, monthly new supply drops ~60% while the 2.1B cap and full gas burn are in place; if Decibel and stablecoin activity keep growing, APT can hold the $0.74 floor (lowest close since 23 Sep), retest the $0.90 October high and then $1.15 (11 May).

Bear case

Burn stays a rounding error, Community and Foundation unlocks of ~4.5M APT a month plus staking emissions keep diluting holders, and capital prefers Solana, Sui and Hyperliquid; price loses $0.74 and retests the $0.52 August low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • Monthly APT burned vs ~1.6M emissions and ~4.5M unlocks
  • Stablecoin supply and Decibel volume on Aptos
  • Whether the 210M APT Foundation lock and Raptr ship
  • $0.74 support, $0.90 (12 Oct) and $1.15 (May) resistance

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

APT against EUR · USD

24h $289.1k · ±2% depth $347.5k

OKXlisted

APT against EUR · USDT · USDC · TRY

24h $2.54M · ±2% depth $161.6k

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
BinanceAPT/USDT$7.77M$314.7k
OKXAPT/USDT$2.42M$161.6k
UpbitAPT/KRW$1.76M$200.7k
BybitAPT/USDT$1.52M$264.5k
CoinbaseAPT/USD$1.12M$204.5k

Deepest DEX pools

Pool24h vol±2% depth
HyperionCLAPT/XBTC · Aptos$12.9k$5.60k
HyperionCLAPT/USDC · Aptos$312.8k$5.00k
HyperionCLAPT/WBTC · Aptos$13.5k$4.86k

Pool size (TVL), fee tier and fee APR are not in yet: they need DefiLlama, which this setup cannot reach so far. CL = concentrated liquidity (higher fees, more impermanent-loss risk).

On-chain share of all APT volume: 0.7%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

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