What’s wrong with the Aptos blockchain? All the problems in one article

After a four-year journey, the former Meta developers have launched a VC-backed Layer 1 mainnet called Aptos. According to the creators, the goal of the project is to give the world “the safest and most scalable Layer 1 blockchain.” Whether or not they succeeded is hard to guess, but one of the users has already criticized the implementation of the project. Justified or not, let’s look into it.

What is Aptos? 

One of the reasons there is so much hype around Aptos is that the new network is being called a potential “Solana killer”. It is yet another attempt to create the perfect blockchain for smart contracts and code that supports everything from NFT to DeFi. 

So, while Ethereum is focusing on the Merge, which is essentially going nowhere and is not that important to ordinary users, other market players, like Solana, and now Aptos, are working on increasing transaction speeds, and other technical aspects. According to Decrypt, the project has a rough estimate of $1B. 

Features: 

• Transaction speed. According to the creators, during network testing, Aptos processed 130K transactions per second compared to 30 per second on Ethereum.
• The basis. The Aptos ecosystem is built on the affiliate programming language Move, which emphasizes scarcity and access control.
• Anchorage Digital serves as the institutional custodian.

The project team called the current launch an important step to bring the masses to Web3. 

“We are proud to arrive here together, for the people. This is step one in a long journey to create universal and fair access to dApps for billions of people through a safe, scalable, and upgradable blockchain,” — said the statement. 

We also know that crypto exchange FTX, which also acts as one of Aptos’ investors, will list Aptos’ native token called APT on October 19. 

Upcoming listing on FTX: Aptos $APT spot market!

Live on October 19, 2022 at 1am (UTC)@AptosLabs
Listing details: https://t.co/fbc4IWeokf pic.twitter.com/D2MLvnnkUp

— FTX (@FTX_Official) October 18, 2022

 

What’s wrong with Aptos? 

The author of the thread claims that Aptos is broken. Despite the many pluses and announced features, not everyone was impressed by the news about the release of Aptos. So, Twitter user Paradigm Engineer #420 criticized the implementation of the project. Aptos so far has a slower transaction rate than Bitcoin, he said, and APT tokens are either pledged or getting ready to be dumped to retail investors. In addition, the current network transaction rate is only 4 tps instead of the promised 130.

In addition, the thread says, most transactions are not real. The author argues that they are just validators that exchange data and set block checkpoints and write metadata to the blockchain. 

“It’s hard to see how users can even use Aptos right, I cannot find any rpcs nor connect with any validators to send a transaction,” said Paradigm Engineer #420. 

The thread’s author is sure that Aptos is aware of the failures. So, between genesis and 1:30 p.m. Pacific time, the project team’s Discord was disabled. So, users could not communicate or ask questions. Channels were opened only recently, but important channels, such as dev-resources, are still closed.

According to Paradigm Engineer #420, if the company went wrong and there are failures, it should have been announced publicly, but Aptos hasn’t done that yet. Read a detailed investigation here. 

Do you think the criticism of Paradigm Engineer #420 is justified?