The time has come to highlight the project that I consider to be one of the most promising of all.

First of all, let’s figure out what it is all about.

Aptos is a layer 1 protocol. Several quite good projects are already being built on its basis, such as the NFT auction / marketplace, and, most importantly, the Pokemon battle simulator (yeah). Isn’t this a miracle?

In general, there are several options to speed up the blockchain, which can be divided into 2 approaches: dividing blockchains into smaller parts or trying to improve the existing network. Ethereum, for example, is trying to build “sharding”, which, by the way, is already implemented very well in NEAR. Or there are “rollups” that take over some of the operations and do them outside the main network.

An alternative approach is to improve a single network without breaking it apart. This approach is implemented by Aptos. Sounds too common, doesn’t it? So let’s go in more detail.

Technical features

BFT consensus with a high degree of reliability. Now, among a huge number of projects, this is becoming almost a standard.
Programming language “Move” (modules + scripts running on MVM). In general, they are very focused on security. One of the key features to achieve this goal is the Move language, which takes many features from Rust and C++. In addition, a member of the community makes a Python-Move compiler.
Move Prover, which helps in writing smart contracts, making them more secure.
Key recovery and key rotation protocols
multi-agent transactions
continuous chain of metrics and measurements
high performance and fast finalization
parallel transactions across accounts while maintaining control over the order of transactions
fast and flexible state management support for light, full, archive or validator nodes.

Development

Aptos CLI is under development right now. What for? Facilitate the experience of using and interacting with the platform.

The configuration file.
Profiles that allow you to test features.
Commonly used fields.

Plans for CLI

More functionality, secret key storage, type support, get rid of legacy and other improvements.

They are also working on the Indexer, serialization for TS, their own wallet. From the community, by the way, there are several versions of the wallet.

Solana, for example, has such a thing as a union of transactions. But Aptos has scripts on demand. You know, it gives you much more use cases.

We will talk about all the details in the future, but for now I wanted to give you a general idea about Aptos.

Pontem IDE

Solidity has its own tools, Move has its own. That’s why Pontem, another project based on Move, creates an IDE to speed up and simplify development. Everything is still at an early stage, so there are not many functions yet, but the process is underway.

Pontem IDE

Team

Now that’s why I personally believe in Aptos, namely the team. Remember Libra/Diem from Facebook? What about their Calibra/Novi? Well, you know where I’m going with this. A couple of leads from there are Aptos founders. In addition, they took with them part of the team from Meta. You can take a look at their LinkedIn.

It turns out that they have been working on this blockchain for a long time, even if now it is already something different than it was originally. Some things were corrected, something was rewritten and they continue to improve on the eve of the mainnet in Q3 2022.

Roadmap

At the moment, we are waiting for the start of the second phase of the paid testnet, where we will have to install a validator node. Within a couple of weeks, all the conditions will be announced and it will be possible to begin to pass verification and prepare for the launch. In total there will be 4 stages with different conditions and number of participants.

Mainnet launch is planned for the third quarter. So far, they have not missed the deadlines, so you can expect that everything will go as it should.

FAQ

Q. When is the ambassador program? - While development is underway and there are no exact dates.
Q. Are there rewards for installing a node? - Only people who get into the testnet will receive rewards if they meet the requirements.
Q. When is the next testnet phase?
- AIT2 is scheduled for June-July.
Q. Will there be community activities?
- Ways to involve the community in the life of the project are constantly discussed. There are many things planned, stay in touch. In the meantime, you can participate in the meme-a-ton
Q. When Whitepaper/Tokenomics? - There are no details, but it is being developed.
Q. When is the ICO? - There is no information about the token sale yet. Aptos token cannot be purchased in any way now.
Q. What is Aptos TPS (transactions per second)? - Currently 160k, but this figure is based on an incomplete completion process. There is no consensus here.

Conclusion

There are projects that are initially built with EVM in mind, but this is not what I would like to see. Creating your own infrastructure, development environment, blockchain features just makes the blockchain much more unique, useful and interesting.

By the way, I’m doing recaps of all АМА sessions (Discord). It turns out to be quite a good option to track how the project’s been developing, what problems were important in each period of time and what the community was interested in.