Bull markets are easy. Every crypto asset is in the green, and the investment thesis becomes closely connected to the overall sentiment and narratives. However, things are different in a bear market, with one exception. Aptos reached an all-time high in January and went on into price discovery later. While every other crypto is recovering from crushing losses, Aptos is pumping.

Why is Aptos making an exception, and what can we expect in the near future?

Aptos ecosystem is flowering

Aptos had a bad start last year. It basically came up shortly before FTX went bust and after that happened, the price kept plummeting until the end of 2022. The price recovered, with Bitcoin and the rest of the market taking a break from tanking at the beginning of 2023.

Aside from the fact that Aptos' RSI was sending a clear sign in December 2022 that APT was oversold, there is more to its success story. NFTs and DeFi applications are starting on the new blockchain, driving the initial demand for APT. At the core of this move stand Souffl3, the most successful NFT marketplace on Aptos at the time of writing.

According to Defilama, Aptos TVL (total value locked) is rising, and the number of registered dApps increased to 18. Of course, those are small numbers compared to market-leading blockchains like Ethereum or Polygon, but it seems that the market is even rewarding small growth.

Aptos is still in a very early stage

Despite this recent success, one should keep in mind that Aptos is very early and its technology is far from reaching its goals. The Aptos blockchain can handle up to 160,000 transactions per second in theory. However, at its current state, it is 8 tps on average, which is even slower than Ethereum’s on-chain capacity.  

Another factor that comes into play is token unlocks. Venture Capitals like a16z invested in Aptos and acquired APT for a price between 4 and 7 Cents. Many analysts and influencers are warning that this could create a huge incentive for them to sell their tokens for a handsome profit.

While it is a good idea to keep in mind who is a stakeholder in Aptos, the same things have been said about Solana in 2021. Apparently, the price for SOL reached an all-time high of around $260 and the fact that many VCs sat on a bunch of tokens didn’t hurt its success. All these pros and cons clearly indicate that Aptos is indeed still in an early stage.