A quick one-minute look at the Aptos token economics

The mainnet of the star public chain Aptos was officially launched early this morning. Official browser data shows that 80% of APT tokens have been pledged, triggering speculation in the community that 80% of the token supply is controlled by the team and investors.

To clarify the doubts, the Aptos Foundation released a quick overview of the APT token economics. The Aptos Foundation also stated that a more comprehensive explanation of the Aptos token economics and value will be released later.

Initial Supply

The mainnet was launched on October 12, 2022. The initial total supply of Aptos Tokens (APT) on the mainnet is 1 billion tokens. APT will have 8 decimal places as the smallest unit is called Octa.

Community and Aptos Foundation Distribution Schedule

These two portions of tokens are designated for ecosystem-related projects, such as grants, incentives, and other community development initiatives. Some of these tokens have been allocated to projects built on the Aptos protocol and will be awarded upon completion of certain milestones.

The majority of the community tokens (410,217,359.767) are held by the Aptos Foundation, and a smaller portion (100,000,000) is held by Aptos Labs .

The tokens are expected to be distributed over a ten-year period:

• 125,000,000 community APTs are immediately available for circulation (available initially) to support current and future ecosystem projects, grants, and other community growth initiatives in the community category

• 5,000,000 foundation APTs will be put into circulation immediately (available initially) to support the Aptos Foundation's plans for foundations

• The remaining tokens are expected to be unlocked monthly over the next 10 years, with 1/120 unlocked each time.

Core Contributor and Investor Distribution Schedule

All investors and current core contributors are bound by a 4-year lockup schedule after mainnet launch, which unlocks according to the following schedule:

• No unlocking in the first twelve months;

• Unlocked every month from the 13th month to the 18th month (including the 18th month) after the mainnet launch, 3/48 will be unlocked every month;

• Starting from the 19th month after the mainnet launch, 1/48 of the tokens will be unlocked each month so that all such tokens are unlocked by the fourth anniversary of the mainnet launch;

(Golden Finance Note: Based on the above, a simple calculation shows that the Aptos team controls at least 67.52% of the APT tokens, and it will be more if the core contributors are included; the initial circulation is 130 million (125 million + 50 million) APT tokens. Because the APT tokens of investors and core contributors are completely locked in the first year, the initial circulation comes entirely from the Aptos team.)

Estimated Token Supply Schedule

Today, over 82% of tokens on the network are staked across all categories, with the majority of these currently locked up according to the distribution schedule mentioned above .

Note: Both unlocked (i.e. tokens that can be distributed) and locked (i.e. non-distributable) tokens can be staked.

Expected changes in total circulating token supply over the next 10 years based on network performance and staking assumptions

Expected Token Supply Changes

• Token holders who stake their tokens to validator operators to ensure network security and consensus may receive staking rewards;

• Staking rewards are distributed between validator operators and stakers without any allocation restrictions;

• Currently, the maximum reward rate starts at 7% per year and is evaluated at each epoch. The maximum reward rate decreases by 1.5% per year until it reaches a lower limit of 3.25% per year.

• These rewards increase the total supply of the Aptos network and are dependent on the amount staked and the validator’s performance;

• Transaction fees are currently burned, although this may be revisited in the future via an on-chain governance vote;

• All rewards and reward mechanisms can also be modified through on-chain governance.