Aptos is a project focused on building a high-speed, parallelizable, and low-commission blockchain, on which to generate decentralized applications designed for security and massive use by users.
As technology continues to evolve, companies are looking for new ways to improve your operations and maintain a competitive advantage, being the blockchain, one of the technologies that has become more established in the sector in recent years. Faced with this reality, Aptos is one of those blockchain technology projects that aims to find its place within the ecosystem, presenting a solution designed to transform the way companies and communities dedicated to this technology operate.
In this article, we will explore the benefits of the Aptos Blockchain, its use cases, and how it can help companies bring new decentralized products and services within everyone's reach.
Introduction to Aptos
Aptos is a blockchain-based solution that is specifically designed for business and the need to have fast, secure and flexible blockchain technology for the generation of products and services.
Thus, in essence, Aptos is a decentralized platform that allows companies manage your data, transactions and assets securely and efficiently. The platform has capabilities for advanced smart contracts that are possible thanks to the use of the programming language Move, a revolutionary language developed by Facebook, for what would be its biggest project in the sector: pound/diem.
In fact, Aptos takes a lot of the technological bases of Libra/Diem to make its proposal a reality. Some of these features are a parallel execution engine, high-level security features, and low transaction costs. And this is no coincidence, since Aptos has been created by the same team of Diem developers, without the support of Facebook, but without losing focus on the initial project:
Build blockchain technology within everyone's reach.
With this in mind, the Aptos developer team launched its mainnet on October 17, 2022, under the name “Aptos Autumn”.
Aptos Labs, the architect of the project and its rapid development
Since then, the project has not stopped growing and receiving millions of dollars from investors, which is why it has become one of the fastest growing blockchain networks in the ecosystem. In fact, the current capitalization of Aptos already exceeds 2 billion dollars, which clearly tells us about the future possibilities of this blockchain, especially about its capabilities within the Web3 world.
The development of this entire project is led by Aptos Labs, headed by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching. Shaikh and Ching met when they worked together on the Diem blockchain project in Meta. Shaikh specializes in product scaling and has experience in the private equity and venture capital markets.
For his part, Ching was one of Meta's top software engineers and has led many interesting and innovative development projects in the past. When Meta decided to discontinue the Diem project, Shaikh and Ching decided to come together to create Aptos Labs.
How does Aptos Blockchain work?
Aptos has been presented as a highly scalable and flexible blockchain. Its developers indicate that the network can reach about 120 thousand transactions per second (TPS), while maintaining a high level of security and reliability.
To achieve this, Aptos makes use of a huge set of technologies among which we have:
Block-STM, the key to parallel execution of Aptos
Block-STM is the epicenter of Aptos' ability to handle smart contracts and perform operations in parallel. This is vital, because to achieve high stability, it is necessary for the network to be able to execute operations in parallel (two or more operations, in different states and being executed at the same time).
Aptos allows things to be much faster because a single failed transaction will not stop the entire chain and also increases the processing capacity of the network. At the same time, Block-STM is able to reduce the number of transactions and make them more efficient, ordering them and treating them as unique and atomic blocks of data that are processed by the network. In this way, costs are lowered and latency for users is reduced.
Transactions can be processed simultaneously, and all of them are validated after execution. To further improve efficiency, a collaborative scheduler works to prioritize certain transactions on the Aptos blockchain and handle essential validations efficiently. Ultimately, up to 160.000 transactions can be processed simultaneously.
The basic operating structure of Aptos can be easily seen in the following graph:
Asynchronous BFT consensus protocol
One of the most important elements for the security and operation of a blockchain is the BTF protocol, or Resistant to Byzantine Faults, since it is the one that guarantees the security and correct execution of all operations. On blockchains like Bitcoin o Ethereum, this protocol has a strong synchronous nature, performing operations sequentially.
However, Aptos evolves and builds a BFT protocol that works in a decoupled and asynchronous way. Thanks to this, your operations can be executed in parallel, reducing latency and increasing the speed of operation.
To achieve this, Aptos has had its BFT protocol parse the individual states of the chain and automatically update the validators as needed, in a process known as "Verification of Periodic States". This process is responsible for generating checkpoints periodically that are used to verify the chain and to maintain synchronization between the different nodes that make up the chain.
Move, smart contracts and DApps within Aptos
Move is an open source programming language developed by Facebook specifically for blockchain applications and was part of its Libra/Diem development. However, with the abandonment of this project, Aptos has decided to take this advance and integrate it into its technology.
Move is a type of executable bytecode language, plus it's flexible enough to handle the unique needs of Aptos developers. In addition, Move allows users to define custom resources that cannot be copied or discarded, making it much more difficult for malicious entities to control the Aptos blockchain, as well as the smart contracts and DApps that are deployed in it. Thus, Move is designed from the ground up to be a safe language for the development of DApps and Web3.
Thanks to Move, Aptos is a network where we can deploy fungible tokens (following the ERC-20 standard), non-fungibles (or NFTS, following the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards) and decentralized applications created in order to provide specific services, as occurs in other networks such as Ethereum. In any case, you should be aware that operations in Aptos are not only faster, but also less expensive, due to its enormous scalability.
Main features of Aptos Blockchain
Some of the key features of Aptos Blockchain include:
- It is a decentralized platform. Anyone can participate in your network of nodes by respecting the staking and deployment requirements of nodes within the network.
- Highly secure and tamper-proof. The use of Block-STM and its checkpoints system ensures that the network can function asynchronously and in parallel without risk of manipulation by malicious actors.
- It is highly scalable, thanks to its parallelizable operation, which allows it to operate at speeds of more than 120 transactions per second.
- In addition, Move, Aptos' smart contract programming language, is designed to be secure and allow rapid construction of DApps with a "safe by default" scheme from the ground up.
One highlight of Aptos is its huge hardware and internet connection requirement to install nodes. For example, for a full validation node, you need at least a modern CPU (6 or 8 cores), 32 GB of RAM, a dedicated internet connection of at least 1 Gbps, and a 4 TB hard drive. Certainly, they are not small requirements, which leads to installing this type of nodes in clouds such as those provided by Amazon or Google Cloud, to meet their current and future needs.
Conclusion
Aptos is a tool that has the potential to transform the way businesses operate. The platform is highly secure and tamper-proof, making it an ideal solution for businesses that need to process a large number of transactions quickly and securely. Also, since the platform is decentralized, there is no need for intermediaries to handle transactions, which can help reduce costs and improve efficiency.
If you're interested in implementing Aptos into your development, the first step is to identify the specific use case you want to address. Once you've identified the use case, you can start customizing the platform to meet your specific needs. With its highly scalable and customizable nature, Aptos is a highly effective solution for improving your operations and maintaining a competitive advantage.
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