Amid rising Bitcoin prices and increasing capital inflows, the Layer 1 blockchain known as Aptos demonstrated significant advancements in key metrics for the first quarter of the year, according to Messari. Despite these notable developments, its native token, APT, faced challenges with its price performance, resulting in modest gains compared to other leading digital currencies.
Aptos experienced a remarkable 127% increase in its circulating market cap quarter-on-quarter, reaching an impressive $6.6 billion. This surge in market cap outpaced the percentage growth seen in other similarly sized projects, boosting Aptos’ market cap ranking from 33 to 22. However, the token APT only saw a restrained increase of 76% over the quarter.
Revenue and Inflation Dynamics
In the first quarter, Aptos’ revenue, encompassing all protocol-collected fees, rose by 37%, amounting to $475,000. Interestingly, when measured in its native token, APT, the revenue actually declined by 10%. Despite the revenue being eliminated from circulation through a process known as burning, the number of tokens burned did not significantly reduce inflation.
Regarding inflation, APT’s annualized inflation rate started at 7% and is planned to decrease by 1.5% annually until it stabilizes at 3.5%. By mid-October, this rate had slightly decreased to just below 6.9%. Efforts to control inflation were complicated by the unlocking of the genesis supply, with nearly 31% of this initial supply being distributed by the end of the first quarter.
Network Activity and Transaction Fees
The first quarter saw a significant increase in Aptos’ network activity, marked by a rise in transactions and active addresses, with growth rates of 66% and 97% quarter-on-quarter, respectively. Despite this surge, the average transaction fee dropped by 45%, reducing to 0.0006 APT, equivalent to $0.007. Additionally, the average daily unique addresses increased by 91%, reaching 44,000, while the weighted average one-month retention rate rose by 82% to a notable 14%.
Staking and DeFi Expansion
During the first quarter, the amount of APT staked declined by approximately 5% to 861 million tokens. However, in USD terms, the staked market cap grew by 68%, surpassing $14 billion.
Simultaneously, Aptos experienced a substantial increase in its decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked, registering an extraordinary 376% growth quarter-on-quarter to $573 million. This growth was not solely due to the appreciation of APT’s price. The total value locked also increased by 170% compared to the previous quarter when measured in APT terms. Alongside this, Aptos’ stablecoin market cap almost doubled quarter-on-quarter, reaching $97 million.
Price Performance and Market Challenges
Despite the abundance of promising data, APT’s price performance struggled, declining by over 16% over the past thirty days, resulting in a relatively modest 2.7% rise for the year thus far. In comparison, this performance was modest against the double or triple-digit gains seen by other leading cryptocurrencies.
As of now, APT, valued at $8.46, is in a challenging position to surpass its nearest resistance point at $8.80, leading to a consolidation phase between $8.20 and $8.70 over the past 30 days.
Overall, while Aptos has shown substantial growth and progress in various key metrics, the performance of its native token, APT, highlights the ongoing challenges and volatility in the cryptocurrency market.