Aptos CEO Defends 'Fair' Tokenomics That Prompted Community Backlash

The CEO of Aptos, the newly launched layer 1 blockchain that went live last month, has defended the project's "fair" token allocation following a wave of criticism from its community.

Aptos airdropped its APT token to early network testers in October, but concerns surfaced immediately over the distribution of tokens, with core contributors, investors and the Aptos Foundation receiving almost half the 1 billion tokens issued. This led to concerns that investors and the foundation could potentially liquidate their tokens, which would trigger a negative market reaction.

"Our goal when we designed the tokenomics was to create something that fairly represents the community," Aptos CEO Mo Shaikh told CoinDesk in an interview. "If you look at our tokenomics distribution, we have among the lowest across any blockchain for investors. ... It's among the most fair that we have seen even compared to other projects."

Ethereum allocated just 9.9% of its supply to the founding team and another 9.9% to the Ethereum Foundation.

Aptos, which is made up of former Meta employees that previously worked on the Diem blockchain, raised $200 million in March followed by a $150 million Series A round in July, with participation from the likes of FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto.

The Aptos token (APT) is currently trading at $7.39 with a market cap just shy of $1 billion.

See also: Aptos Token Rebounds After Upstart Blockchain's Dismal Debut