The Surge of APT and the Promising Public Chain Behind It
As we enter 2023, the crypto winter has seen a warm-up: Bitcoin has broken the $20,000 mark, and Ethereum has gradually stabilized at the $1,500 level, leading the overall crypto market to rise. The hottest of all is Aptos: Aptos token (APT) has seen a massive surge of 372% since January 9, with a surge of over 400% in the past 30 days. During this period, Aptos has continuously hit new all-time highs, reaching a peak trading price of $19.8, making it the best-performing altcoin in the crypto market in 2023 so far.
In a previous article on new public chains, the veDAO Research Institute introduced Aptos, a high-performance Layer 1 public chain built by former Meta engineers. This article will explore the reasons behind the surge of Aptos and discuss other promising technical public chains similar to Aptos.
The Surge of APT Price
The main reason for the growth of APT is the overall rebound of the cryptocurrency market since the beginning of 2023. During this period, the total market value of cryptocurrencies has increased by about $250 billion. Many believe that the main reason for the rebound is the slowing of US inflation, with the consumer price index for December meeting expectations, further driving the market. Therefore, when Bitcoin rebounds, it also brings a wave of increases to other altcoins, and APT has clearly benefited from this. Additionally, as supporters of Aptos, including a16z, Multicoin Capital, Jump Crypto, Tiger Global Management, Blocktower Capital, and Coinbase Ventures, may have played a role in this surge. Furthermore, there are additional factors that have contributed to the rise in APT price:
Support from the Korean Market
On January 26, APT's trading volume on the Upbit exchange exceeded $1 billion, four times the spot trading volume on Binance, and the Korean won (KRW) spot trading pairs had a significant premium. At the time of writing, 68.40% of APT's $360 million trading volume comes from the Korean won trading pairs on the Singapore exchange UpBit, with APT priced at $16.57 on UpBit, nearly $0.2 higher than the price on Binance and most other exchanges.
According to the candlestick chart, the clear starting point of APT's surge was January 9; and the Korean Xangle Blockchain Foundation Week also opened on this day, with Aptos being the only focus and theme at the event. In addition, Aptos has shown enough sincerity to the Korean market: the official white paper has a Korean version, the only language other than English; and the Aptos World Tour Hackathon, starting in 2023, will have its first stop in Seoul. Clearly, Aptos' sincerity has paid off.
Expansion of the Ecosystem
Another potential reason for the price increase is the development of the Aptos ecosystem. Aptos was just launched in October last year, and while the number of projects built on its ecosystem is still small, it is growing. Looking back from December 2022 to January this year, the DeFi trading volume on Aptos has increased from $14 million to $51 million, and the growth is still ongoing. Ecosystem expansion will also be an important factor for long-term value, and we will continue to explore the ecosystem of Aptos in the following sections.
Increase in Aptos NFT Sales
The soaring demand for NFTs built on Aptos is also one of the factors contributing to the rise in APT. The NFT trading market Topaz recently showed a 3 to 4 times increase in the trading volume of multiple NFT collections. At the same time, according to the Aptos blockchain browser Tracemove, the trading volume of many projects based on Aptos has surged.
The Ecosystem and Value of Aptos
In the past year, the Aptos ecosystem has steadily developed, with over 50 ecosystem projects already launched on the mainnet, and more than 200 projects in the testing and auditing stages, with a total locked value (TVL) of the ecosystem exceeding $50 million. To date, from basic infrastructure services such as wallets and oracles, to functional applications such as DeFi, NFTs, and games, Aptos has gradually developed a clear and diverse ecosystem that is still evolving, which has significantly contributed to the long-term value of APT.
However, from current observations, the development of the Aptos ecosystem is still in the early stages, and the ecosystem landscape is still uncertain:
- The TVL of the entire Aptos chain is currently only about $50 million, and the scale of users and funds in the ecosystem is not yet substantial;
- The core functions of most projects on Aptos have not been fully developed, and some are still in the development testing stage (such as some DeFi derivative projects);
- The vast majority of native projects in the Aptos ecosystem have not yet issued governance tokens, and the wealth effect has not yet been demonstrated.
However, with the market sentiment turning positive, for projects working on Aptos, the near future may be a very important window of opportunity; and the achievements of these projects are also expected to support the long-term value of APT. Aptos has development prospects, but it still needs time to mature; setting aside market sentiment, it is more important for us to evaluate the development of projects with a rational attitude.
Other Promising Public Chains to Watch
The surge of APT cannot be ignored due to the injection of capital and the rise in market sentiment. Therefore, following this wave of enthusiasm, other projects that are likely to see an increase include the other two projects in the Meta series, as well as some new public chains in the L1 track (which can be found in previous articles by the veDAO Research Institute:
The background, technology, and capital of the Meta series projects Aptos, Sui, and Linera are highly similar, especially Aptos and Sui, which are at similar stages of development and are often compared, making them fierce competitors. With the factors contributing to the surge of APT, the other two projects in the Meta series are expected to benefit from the "heat dividend."
There are also new public chains such as Aleo, which have the potential to rival Aptos, with top-tier venture capital participation. Privacy computing is a hot technology in the internet and blockchain fields, with high growth and high valuation, and the privacy track is difficult to popularize. Aleo has set a record in the field of zero-knowledge proofs, with two rounds of financing totaling over $228 million, from luxurious investment institutions. Aleo is a public chain that uses zero-knowledge proofs to solve privacy issues while ensuring programmable features, and it also moves smart contract execution off-chain, supporting various Dapps and ensuring scalability. As the Aleo ecosystem moves towards its mainnet launch, the potential unleashed by Aleo is no less than that of Aptos and is worth paying attention to.
Another public chain that uses zero-knowledge proofs is Espresso Systems, which aims to optimize the privacy and scalability of the public chain through zero-knowledge proof technology. It is a Layer 1 blockchain that combines proof of stake (PoS) consensus and the ZK-Rollup mechanism, and is also worth looking forward to.
From GameFi to the metaverse, the composition of the Web3 world always has a place for games. At the same time, since 2019, tech giants in the Web2 space have been launching their own cloud gaming businesses, and the thriving track has led people to believe that they have seen the direction of innovation in the future of the gaming industry. However, Web3 game development teams lack the experience and technology of Web2 game companies, and the entry of Web2 games into Web3 currently lacks a reasonable model for creating intrinsic value. The design of Portalverse changes the distribution path by distributing and paying with tokens, turning high costs into the income of different roles within the ecosystem, thereby solving this dilemma. Web3 allows the transfer of network value directly to users, turning users into builders of the system from the beginning, and forming community management spontaneously, which will create more possibilities for development within the project. Therefore, in the track related to GameFi and the metaverse, the future of Portalverse is worth looking forward to.
Kujira, as a new Layer 1 public chain in the Cosmos ecosystem, has an interesting development process: Kujira was initially launched as an application on Terra Luna, but only a few weeks after Luna's crash, they relaunched their own Cosmos blockchain. Within 200 days, they established order book exchanges, stablecoins, clearing markets, liquidity centers, and more. Luna's crash did not crush Kujira and its team, but instead made Kujira important in the Cosmos ecosystem. Kujira has released a cross-chain dApp called Blue within its ecosystem, with a clean and simple interface; and Kujira has also launched the decentralized order trading platform FIN, and later the liquidity collateral platform ORCA, through which users can obtain collateralized assets at a discounted price.
In addition to the above, there are many new public chains worth paying attention to, and here are just a few typical new public chain projects. These projects have similarities to Aptos and each has its own core advantages. In the new year, their future is worth looking forward to.
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The first month of 2023, with the upcoming Shanghai upgrade, market recovery, and the surge of APT, has stimulated market sentiment, and the crypto market seems to have emerged from the winter. Under this wave of enthusiasm, while following hot investments, discovering potential projects will lead to better returns.
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