Founded by the developers behind Meta’s Diem blockchain, Aptos’ use of a new transaction ordering method has attracted many savvy investors.
When it comes to smart contract blockchains that provide DeFi, DAOs, NFT trading and a plethora of abilities Ethereum remains the king. However critics of Ethereum will tout its speed and costs associated with transactions compared to some competitors as a reason to look elsewhere.
The Solana blockchain emerged as a potential competitor to Ethereum promising much cheaper transaction costs and higher speeds or transactions per second (TPS). While Solana remains a viable competitor the network it has had its issues with several crashes causing downtime for the network over the last year. This has caused some to doubt whether or not Solana is ready for prime time.
In 2019, Meta (previously named Facebook) also created a blockchain, Libra (later rebranded as Diem), but the project was eventually canceled after facing opposition from regulators. So there lies the issue: How can you build a blockchain that is decentralized, secure, and fast at the same time? Is it a possibility? Typically, the successful implementation of one of these features will come at the expense of another one.
The developers behind the new blockchain Aptos believe they may have cracked the code with a new transaction ordering algorithm.
What is Aptos?
Aptos is a new blockchain from the developers of Meta (previously Facebook) diem token. It promises to deliver extremely fast transaction speeds at very low costs. It uses a new transaction ordering technique named “parallel execution” that makes this possible. Aptos has attracted large sums of investment capital since coming onto the crypto scene. They received a $150 million funding round led by FTX and investors including Parafi in late July, then Aptos also landed another $200 million strategic round from big players like Andreessen Horowitz, Multicoin Capital, and Haun Ventures in March.
Some crypto enthusiasts question just how different Aptos is from its competitors and whether “parallel execution” will work as promised. Also Aptos is using a relatively unknown programming language, developers will have to use this language in order to write applications for the Aptos blockchain.
How does Aptos’ parallel execution work?
Most blockchains use a method of transaction ordering called serial execution or sequential execution. This is where a single chronology of transactions is continually updated: every time you make a transaction, that transaction is added to a single long ledger containing every transaction ever executed on the blockchain and updated via thousands of nodes. Because they are all added one at a time, it is then necessary to wait for each new transaction to be verified on the network. That can be timely and the reason for many blockchains slower timeframes to settle.
Parallel execution works differently. It runs multiple simultaneous chains in parallel. This allows, theoretically—for more transactions to be processed at one time. Indeed, Aptos claims its tests have already achieved 130,000 transactions a second, whereas Ethereum before the merge was at 30 a second.
Is Aptos a Solana killer?
Aptos is not claiming to be a Solana killer, this term is sometimes used by crypto enthusiasts to compare different projects. At this time it is way too early to say whether Aptos will compete with the heavy hitter blockchains of Solana and Ethereum in the future. While Solana and Ethereum have had their individual struggles, both continue to lead the pack in transactions. Aptos looks like it may have a bright future however with the meta diem team at the helm and large investments coming in from prominent crypto leaders.
