A few hours after launching, the APT price is down by nearly 50%. Could this be a pump-and-dump scheme?
Following its recent launch to mainnet, the Aptos blockchain network and its token APT price have been subject to a wave of criticisms from crypto analysts. The critics raised concerns about the network’s tokenomics and TPS claims after some discoveries were made.
Questionable Promises and Claims
According to the developers, it took them four years of development to get Aptos to the point of launching on the mainnet. And like most other layer-1 blockchain networks, Aptos is also a “killer” of an existing network, Solana in this case.
Earlier in the year when CTO Avery Ching was explaining what Aptos will hold as an edge over its competitors, he said:
“Current blockchains are just not as reliable as existing financial rails, we’ve seen issues of downtime and outages that last for hours.”
This means that first and foremost, Aptos will look to avoid outages of any sort.
In a more recent announcement, the team also hinted at how they would be supporting a wide range of Web3.0 applications.
For all the promises, however, the part that has caught the eyes of onlooking critics is that the team may have lied about some of its claims. Firstly, it has been discovered that Aptos was not truthful with its transactions per second (TPS) claims. Aptos had previously said it could reach 130,000 TPS. However, engineers are calling its bluff, having found out that its TPS is not even anywhere close to that of the Bitcoin network.
Furthermore, the tokenomics of the network appear to be shady, to say the least. This may come as a surprise as some major exchanges such as Coinbase, FTX, and Binance have already listed the APT token. But it will also be interesting to note that all of these exchanges are invested in Aptos.
Nevertheless, the same engineers that reported the low TPS also found something wrong in the tokenomics. According to the report, about 80% of the APT token supply is being controlled by either the team or its investors.
Is an APT Price Pump and Dump in Play?
Usually, when tokens list on major exchanges, a price surge is not unexpected. So, just as expected, APT Price rose in the early hours of Wednesday following its launch. In fact, it hit $13.73, according to CoinGecko data.
Surprisingly though, and just as analysts thought ahead, APT dumped nearly 50% of its price a few hours later. As of press time, it was trading at $7.52.
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