Aptos Team Launches APT Token Airdrop

The Aptos Foundation, the organisation behind the project, announced an APT token airdrop for early network participants.

1/ The Aptos Foundation has provided early network participants with APT tokens. If you are eligible to claim, you will receive an email from airdrop@aptosfoundation.org in the next few hours.

— Aptos (@AptosFoundation) October 18, 2022

According to a statement from the Aptos Foundation, a total of 20,076,150 APT will be distributed among 110,235 users.

“This is our first airdrop based on existing data. The Aptos Foundation will continue to assess future opportunities to support the community,” the statement said.

On the eve of the announced listing on major exchanges, including Binance, FTX and Coinbase, the project by former Meta employees faced criticism for opaque tokenomics.

Analyst operating under the pseudonym Paradigm Engineer #420 noted that of the total supply of 1 billion APT, 80% is controlled by the Aptos team.

The total supply of Aptos is 1,000,739,234.25, however, 821,111,362.91 is currently staked. This means that a bit over 80% of the token supply is controlled by the team and investors, as there was no airdrop nor other method as to earn mainnet Aptos tokens.

— Paradigm Engineer #420 (@ParadigmEng420) October 17, 2022

“What’s remarkable about this rug pull — every CEX lists Aptos within 24 hours, but you can’t find a single public document about tokenomics.”

It’s not great that FTX/Binance etc are all listing Aptos without any tokenomics transparency at all. Surely it should be a prerequisite to listing something that users can have the basic information on what they’re buying lol

— Cobie (@cobie) October 18, 2022

His view was echoed by Hassan Bassiri, vice president of Arca:

“What’s remarkable about this rug pull — every CEX lists Aptos within 24 hours, but you can’t find a single public document about tokenomics.”

It’s not great that FTX/Binance etc are all listing Aptos without any tokenomics transparency at all. Surely it should be a prerequisite to listing something that users can have the basic information on what they’re buying lol

— Cobie (@cobie) October 18, 2022

The Aptos Foundation responded to the criticism and disclosed the token distribution.

After trading began on October 19, the APT token fell from a high of $18 to levels below $8.

Journalist Colin Wu noted that as a result of the airdrop some users received “a lot of tokens.” Someone sold 189,567 APT directly on Binance, crashing the price, he added.

Exclusive: Aptos suddenly released an airdrop without strict anti-sybil attack, which led to some people getting a lot of airdrop tokens. Someone selling 189,567 APT directly on binance, resulting in the APT price from $15 to less than $13. pic.twitter.com/sE71UzRnSC

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 19, 2022

In March, Aptos Labs raised $200 million, and in July closed a Series A financing round of $150 million.

In September, Binance Labs supported the project as a strategic partner.

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