
In the midst of escalating Bitcoin prices and burgeoning capital inflow in the market, the Layer 1 blockchain referred to as Aptos, as per an account from Messari, evidenced substantial progress in essential metrics for the first quarter of the year. Despite these significant strides, its native token, APT, endured a tough patch with its price performance lagging behind, resulting in humble gains when stacked against other top-ranking digital currencies.
Elaborating on these notable gains, Aptos saw a resounding 127% surge in its circulating market cap quarter-on-quarter, valuing it at an incredible $6.6 billion. Outstripping the percentage growths witnessed by other similarly capped projects, this surge took Aptos’ rank in market cap from 33 to 22. However, Aptos’ very own token, APT, saw a more restrained boost of 76% over the quarter.
Aptos’ first-quarter revenue, comprising all protocol-collected fees, rose by 37% to a substantial $475,000. Interestingly, however, when approximated in its native token, APT, the revenue actually fell by 10%. Despite all revenue generated by Aptos being eliminated from circulation through a process known as burning, the number of tokens burned failed to contribute significantly to lowering inflation.
On the topic of inflation, the annualized inflation rate for APT commenced at 7% and is intended to drop by 1.5% on an annual basis until it steadies at 3.5%. By the midpoint of October, this rate had dwindled to a figure marginally less than 6.9%; these efforts to regulate inflation were also burdened by the unlocking of the genesis supply, with close to 31% of this pioneering supply being disseminated by the end of Q1.
The first quarter also witnessed a prodigious escalation in Aptos’ network activity, marked by increased transactions and active addresses, recording growth rates of 66% and 97% quarter-on-quarter respectively. Despite this surge in transaction activity, the average transaction fee dropped by 45%, reducing to 0.0006 APT, amounting to $0.007. Interestingly enough, average daily unique addresses climbed by 91%, reaching 44,000, with the weighted average one-month retention rate swelled by 82% to a significant 14%.
Turning attention to staking, the first quarter saw APT staked decline by approximately 5% to 861 million tokens, yet when viewed in USD terms, the staked market cap outstripped its previous value by 68%, going beyond $14 billion.
In tandem with all this, Aptos also saw an impressive expansion in its decentralized finance’s total value locked, registering a meteoric 376% surge quarter-on-quarter to $573 million. Furthermore, as per the account by Messari, this growth was not solely attributed to the appreciation in APT’s price. The total value locked also ballooned by 170% in comparison to the prior quarter when measured in APT terms. Complementing this, Aptos’ stablecoin market cap virtually doubled quarter-on-quarter, coming to rest at $97 million.
Despite the wealth of promising data, APT’s price performance teetered on the edge of stagnation, fading by over 16% over the past thirty-day period, equating to a relatively measly 2.7% rise for the duration of the year thus far. In comparison, this figure pales against the double or triple-digit gains enjoyed by other lead cryptocurrencies.
As it stands, APT, valued at $8.46, remains in a somewhat laborious battle to exceed its closest resistance point at $8.80; this has led to a consolidation period between $8.20 and $8.70 over the past 30 days.