Aptos (APT) Declines Ahead of $30 Million Token Unlock

APT has dropped nearly 4% over the past 24 hours, underperforming the overall cryptocurrency market.

Aptos (APT) Slides Ahead of $30 Million Token Unlock

As compiled by Coin68, 4.5 million APT tokens (worth approximately $30 million) are set to unlock on August 12. This action will increase the circulating supply by 2.09%. Of these, 3.21 million APT tokens (equivalent to $21 million) will be allocated to the community, with the remainder going to the Aptos Foundation.

Ahead of the token unlock, APT has shown signs of a "downward trend". Over the past 24 hours, the token has dropped by 4% and lost nearly 10% over the 7-day period. Currently, APT is trading at $6.6 per token.

1-hour chart of APT/USDT pair on Binance as of 09:10 AM on August 8, 2023

In 2023, Aptos previously unlocked $30 million worth of APT tokens in July and $50 million in April. On both occasions, APT generally experienced a decline leading up to the unlock date.

Token unlock is the automated process of releasing tokens into circulation on any blockchain. Typically, unlock times are predetermined by projects. Adding tokens to the market allows investors, developers, or owners to sell their holdings, creating selling pressure in the market. However, with underlying demand, new investors or traders may take advantage of this opportunity by buying more tokens, thereby helping to control the sell-off momentum. It is still too early to determine whether APT's decline will halt.

Besides Aptos, there are several other token unlock events scheduled from here until the end of August, details of which can be found here.

Aptos has been a prominent layer-1 blockchain over the past year, launching its mainnet in October 2022 and gaining significant attention with a thousand-dollar airdrop campaign. To date, Aptos has successfully raised $350 million through multiple funding rounds. Integration with the Indian social network Chingari has seen new user adoption on layer-1 increase by over 900% by the end of July.

According to data from DefiLlama, DeFi activity on Aptos has seen impressive growth recently—rising over 50% in the past 7 days and 80% in the past month. During this period, the Total Value Locked (TVL) of the ecosystem has surpassed $50 million for the first time since February.

Total Value Locked (TVL) of Aptos as of 09:15 AM on August 8, 2023. Source: DefiLlama

Back in April, Aptos proposed AIP-70 to significantly improve transaction fees. As confirmed by the project, this update will "reduce gas usage by 100 times, with 90% of transactions improved by at least 10 times".