‘Solana killer’ Aptos rises more than 30%, is it worth to invest?

• The APT token is showing very strong price action over the last weekend gaining more than 30 percent.
• The launch of Aptos in mid-October was mired with controversies while the APT token is again gaining prominence.

Aptos, the potential Solana-killer is gaining massive prominence recently while generating considerable trading volumes in the initial days of listing. Over the last weekend, the Aptos (APT) price surged more than 30 percent moving from $7.00 to more than $10.00 on Sunday, October 23.

The APT price has partially retraced since and is currently trading at $9.25. As per data from Coinalyze, the recent price jump happened due to a short squeeze wherein several traders were liquidated for betting against the APT token.

The Aptos team announced the launch of its mainnet earlier this month on October 17. Soon after, the APT token went live for trading on several crypto exchanges. The APT token has been showing considerable volatility since launch and it has bounced back twice from the price range of $7.0. Over the last week, the APT token has registered more than $1 billion in trading volume.

Criticism surrounding Aptos (APT) launch

Since the launch, the Aptos project has received some criticism due to the lack of transparency around its tokenomics i.e. APT’s economic model and distribution. Some market players also criticized the exchange for listing APT tokens before the project disclosed its economic model.

Soon after, the details of the token distribution leaked and the Aptos team also confirmed the same. However, this was met with another round of criticism! This is because a staggering 51 percent of APT supply is currently sitting with venture capital firms. An investor who goes by “iamDCinvestor” on Twitter lashed out at the project saying:

The near categorical rejection of Aptos, created by ex-Libra devs as a fairly blatant cash grab (and ofc funded by the usual suspects who extract billions from the space), may be one of the most important social shifts we’ve seen in the space in a while.

Aptos co-founder and CEO Mo Shaikhalso admitted that it could have been a better launch than what happened.

Top exchanges supporting Aptos (APT) trading

Some of the most popular crypto exchanges like Huobi Global and Binance have facilitated trading for the Aptos (APT) cryptocurrency. Huobi Global witnessed an outsized portion of APT trades accounting for 11 percent of the total spot volumes. Nearly $40 million worth of APT tokens traded on Huobi across three pairs – Tether, USD Coin, and Tron’s USDD stablecoin.

Also, there were reports that the Aptos team has asked a few exchanges to list perpetual futures for APT tokens within two weeks of the launch. Crypto exchange Binance was among the first to jump on this bandwagon. Future derivatives for the Aptos (APT) tokens are now traded across crypto exchanges such as Binance, FTX, OKX, Huobi, Bybit, and Bitmex.