Uncovering the ecological mystery behind Aptos: The halo faded and the ecological growth stalled

"The chain is fast, the heart is painful, and the money is little." This humorous ridicule expresses the helplessness of many early supporters of Aptos.

When Sui took off, another "Move Gemini" fell into a completely different situation. At the beginning of its birth, Aptos entered the market with high TPS, Move language and strong capital support, but capital can mature a public chain, but cannot give it real vitality.

What kind of dilemma is Aptos in?

The halo fades, and the ecological growth stalls

Aptos was born in 2022, backed by the former Meta team, and emerged as a star project under the halo of "next generation L1". With the support of a16z, YZi Labs, Jump Crypto and other institutions, Aptos enjoyed the fanatical pursuit of the capital market in the early stage. However, as market sentiment cools, its once proud technical narrative is gradually losing its appeal.

Dune data shows that Aptos' current daily active addresses have dropped to about 1 million, and the number of daily transactions is 3-4 million times, while Sui, which is also based on the Move language, has exceeded 10 million daily transactions, and its DEX transaction volume and application revenue are far higher than Aptos.

So, what's wrong with Aptos' ecological growth?

False prosperity of resource accumulation

Aptos' previous ecological expansion was highly dependent on the "resource-driven" model rather than real market demand. Crypto KOL @cryptobraveHQ pointed out that Aptos distributed a large number of chips to partners, introduced well-known DeFi to enrich infrastructure, and pulled Binance, OKX and other leading institutions into ecological construction through OTC refinancing. However, this "quick-win" approach did not bring about real user migration, but was more like a "resource arbitrage game":

After the top DeFi project landed on Aptos, the real user growth was limited, and the chips were quickly sold after being unlocked;

TVL seems to have grown, but most of the funds may just be "displaying" to earn subsidies, and no real liquidity has been formed;

Ecological resources are tilted towards "airborne" projects rather than supporting native developers, resulting in limited development of Aptos native projects and difficulty in forming self-sustaining ecology.

Aptos' "ecological support" is more form than substance

In mid-March, Aptos launched the LFM plan to help ecological projects prepare for TGE. However, Amnis Finance, the first batch of LFM members highly supported by the community, "turned over" due to airdrops.

Community member @KuiGas pointed out that the airdrop distribution of Amnis Finance is highly centralized: only 10,000 of the 440,000 addresses received airdrops, resulting in many real users getting nothing. In this "ecological support" airdrop farce, Aptos' shortcomings in project review and community governance were exposed.

Aptos' "ecological support" is more like a nominal cooperation rather than a real ecological co-construction.

Aptos gave Amnis a lot of resource support, including token rewards, and the latter also spent a year on marketing and lottery. However, the whole process was more formal than substantial, and it ultimately brought not ecological growth, but a failed PR:

There was no combination effect with the core ecology.

No reasonable suggestions or community guidance on the airdrop logic before distribution.

@KuiGas said that Amnis Finance's airdrop was controversial, but Aptos still chose to withdraw silently, repeating a series of inaction in the past.

Core executives resigned in droves

Over the past year, Aptos' senior management has been in turmoil, with CEO Mo Shaikh, head of product design Jessica Anerella, and product head Cathy Sun leaving one after another, triggering market concerns about its internal governance chaos.

Crypto KOL @cryptobraveHQ disclosed that last year Aptos had conducted APT over-the-counter (OTC) trading at a price far below the market price. At that time, the market price of APT was in the range of US$10-13, but some investors were able to participate in OTC at a price of about 40% off. Coincidentally, shortly after the incident was exposed, co-founder and CEO Mo Shaikh and several employees with venture capital (VC) backgrounds left one after another.

He speculated that the direct cause of the personnel changes may involve OTC interest transfer, and the fundamental reason is that Aptos' overall performance after the coin issuance did not meet expectations.

The community is "hateful of iron but not steel", and Aptos is sinking?

Aptos was once highly expected, but now it is deeply trapped in the community's doubts and disappointment. "Lack of market acumen, unclear strategic direction, internal corruption..." Many community members "hate iron but not steel" for it, and the once high expectations are being worn away by reality step by step.

Community member @yi_juanmao bluntly said that the core teams of Aptos and Sui both came from large companies, but their development trajectories were completely different. He criticized Aptos for not following the Web3 route in terms of market sense, strategic layout, user maintenance, and ecosystem co-construction. Instead, it was obsessed with boasting about its high TPS, and its style of doing things became more and more like a rigid Web2 traditional enterprise. He also pointed out that the Aptos ecosystem was full of parasitic projects, overly dependent on capital transfusions, and the entire system lacked vitality and was lifeless.

Community member @Cary_Zz reviewed the changes in the past year and said: "Last year, the two Move leaders were still at the same starting line. At that time, Aptos's popularity was even higher than SUI, and the entire community was full of confidence to welcome the feast of the Aptos ecosystem. However, a year has passed, and things have changed. One of the two Move leaders has become a hero, and the other has become a bear. The price of SUI's coin has been rising, while the Aptos team is busy selling coins at low prices in OTC, internal corruption, and profit transfer. Finally, with the departure of the CEO, a mess was left behind."

Community member @imsongshu directly pointed out that Aptos' internal employees are pedantic and extremely inefficient. @cryptobraveHQ echoed that Aptos used "compliance" as a shield, and the process would take three months.

The capital halo may bring short-term prosperity, but what really determines whether the public chain can gain a foothold in the long run is always user accumulation and sustainable development of the ecosystem.

The competition in the L1 track is still fierce. Only time can tell whether Aptos can break through.