Thread by @expctchaos

0/ being able to process 160'000 TPS & <1s TTF, @Aptos_Network might be the fastest L1 out there 🚀

born out of @Meta's #Diem project, well funded and with a fast growing ecosystem, $APT is one of the alts to watch in 2023 📈👀

ALPHA-packed GIGA research 🧵 on #Aptos (0/62) 👇

1/ contents:

🖥️ Move Language (2-5)
⚖️ Consensus: Proof of Stake (6-16)
🔀 Consensus: Narwhal and Tusk (17-25)
⛓ Parallel Execution (26-33)
🔒 Security Features (34-39)
🪙 Tokenomics (40-46)
🗳 Governance (47)
💼 Team & Funding (48-53)
🌐 Ecosystem (54-59)
🔍 Conclusion (60-62)

2/ 🖥️ Move Language

#Aptos inherits the core features of #Move, an open-source programming language developed by @Meta's Diem Association team. It's designed to create customizable transaction logic & smart contracts and is based on #Rust

3/ #Move Language boasts a high level of security & expressivity, using resources drawn from the mathematical idea of linear logic. It allows devs to avoid mistakes that could lead to exploits, while minimizing gas fees compared to other smart contract chains like #Ethereum

4/ #Move's executable format is “bytecode that is higher-level than assembly yet lower-level than a source language. The bytecode is checked on-chain for resource, type & memory safety by a bytecode verifier & then executed directly by a bytecode interpreter” (source: whitepaper)

5/ @Aptos_Network retains the core features of #Move, with special designs based on its own project characteristics. leveraging the full functionality of #MoveVM, including parallelism, massive storage in accounts & decoupled fine-grained storage

6/ ⚖️ Consensus: Proof of Stake

@Aptos_Network leverages a high-performance Byzantine fault-tolerant quorum-based dPoS consensus called AptosBFT, that separates tx dissemination from tx ordering & is powered by a network of validators which process transactions & update state

7/ in the #Aptos dPoS system, consensus voting power is proportional to the amount of tokens staked within each validator

validators that act maliciously or suffer downtime can be slashed, incentivizing token holders to stake their tokens in honest & performant validators

8/ the protocol implements rapid, stake-weight rotation to optimize validator performance and facilitate organic decentralization of the network

on-chain reputation tracking promotes performant validators and demotes non-performant ones, improving incentive structures

9/ @Aptos_Network’s consensus process and content differ from general blockchains

transaction communication & consensus phases are separate, with verifiers only needing to reach consensus on tx metadata, resulting in blocks containing only tx metadata instead of actual tx data

10/ after transaction metadata is collected and verified, a batch of transactions is created & transmitted repeatedly in the verifiers’ network

the verifier cannot tamper with the batch after distributing it and other verifiers accept & store the batch while signing the summary

11/ #AptosBFT is a leader-centric consensus mechanism and differentiates itself from other leader-based protocols with improved communication efficiency

12/ instead of sending messages to the leader and every other ‘general’, each node communicates only with the leader. The leader broadcasts the message (a suggested block) to be voted on; each node sends its vote to the leader, who collects the messages

13/ the leader needs to get what is called a Quorum Certificate (QC) of n-f votes, where n is the total number of nodes and f is the maximum number of malicious nodes the system can tolerate with that n

14/ when the QC has been reached and verifiers (validators) have signed the batch summary, the system generates a proof of availability (PoAv), guaranteeing that at least f+1 weighted honest verifiers have stored the batch of txs

15/ this means nodes proposing blocks only need to sort/pack a few batches of metadata along with PoAv to produce a block, while the approach also drastically reduces the total # of messages that go through the system, enabling high tx throughput, fast finality & minimal latency

16/ it is especially noteworthy that @Aptos_Network achieves a very fast finality, with TTF of <1 second

this is an especially important metric, as outlined in the thread by @MessariCrypto linked below

https://twitter.com/MessariCrypto/status/1631678346722529282

17/ 🔀 Consensus: Narwhal and Tusk

#Narwhal (yes like the animal) is a mempool protocol specializing in high-throughput reliable dissemination and storage of causal histories of transactions. It tolerates an asynchronous network and maintains high performance despite failures...

18/ ...and guarantees data availability to consensus

19/ #Narwhal is a mempool module based on a scaled primary-worker architecture, separating roles and requirements of the mempool across different players

⚙️ cryptographic proofs of data availability at a primary
⚙️ disk I/O and networking requirements across several worker

20/ #Narwhal is designed to scale-out using multiple workers at each validator, demonstrating no foreseeable limit to the throughput it can achieve (see tweet

21/ additionally, the Narwhal mempool uses a structured graph data structure (DAG) for traversing data. This scaled, role-based #DAG architecture offers zero-message networking overhead design on the consensus

22/ after Narwhal, the validated certificates get ordered through the consensus among the validator nodes, a process called Tusk in the #Aptos consensus engine

23/ in performance testing, Narwhal-HotStuff achieves over 130,000 tx/sec at less than 2-sec latency. Additional workers can increase throughput linearly, reaching up to 600,000 tx/sec without any increase in latency

24/ in contrast, #Tusk achieves 160,000 tx/sec with about 3 seconds of latency

25/ to avoid any confusion here, HotStuff is the BFT consensus algorithm that gave rise to #AptosBFT, which I outlined above

26/ 🔄Parallel Execution

parallel execution in @Aptos_Network disrupts the paradigm of sequential transaction processing (core EVM limitation)

it simplifies the connection of operations & dependencies of txs to execute unrelated txs simultaneously, enhancing network throughput

27/ @Aptos_Network achieves parallel execution through 3 primary methods:

✅ Simultaneous execution of transactions in different threads that do not overlap in data and accounts

28/

✅ Processing transactions in parallel, then handling potential conflicts in settlement order (delta writes)

✅ Reordering transactions across one or more blocks to optimize concurrency

29/ these methods are enabled by Block-STM, a parallel execution engine for smart contracts built around Software Transactional Memory principles that enables parallel execution in the #MoveVM

30/ while I won't explain Block-STM in detail, txs are grouped in blocks & every block execution must yield the same deterministic outcome

31/ #BlockSTM enforces consistent outcomes with a preset order, leveraging this order to dynamically detect dependencies & avoid conflicts during speculative tx execution

32/ #BlockSTM demonstrates a significant performance improvement with up to 110k TPS in #Diem benchmarks and up to 160k TPS in #Aptos benchmarks

33/ thanks to these technological innovations, both with regards to TPS (transactions per second) and TTF (time to finality), @Aptos_Network sets new standards for public L1 chains

34/ 🔒 Added Security Features

@Aptos_Network also offers a range of interesting security features that are worth mentioning, including flexible key management (supporting key rotation, crypto-agility...

35/ ...and hybrid custody models), transaction pre-execution, and transaction constraints (sequence numbers, expiration time, and chain ID)

36/ key rotation is an essential security practice that prevents long-range attacks

decoupling the account from the key enables @Aptos_Network to seamlessly add new digital signature algorithms to support various public and private key types

37/ the hybrid custody model in #Aptos allows advanced recovery solutions & account management, bridging the gap between #Web2 and #Web3, similar to account abstraction on #Ethereum (see thread below)

https://twitter.com/expctchaos/status/1642889752839077888

38/ additionally, transaction pre-execution enables users to evaluate a transaction's outcome before signing, mitigating security risks such as phishing attacks

39/ @Aptos_Network also supports light clients and authenticated storage. This enables a safer and more trustworthy user experience by allowing users to verify data without relying solely on trust

40/ 🪙 Tokenomics

#Aptos mainnet launched on October 12, 2022, with an initial total supply of 1 billion $APT tokens and an uncapped max supply (perpetual inflation)

the smallest unit is called an Octa and initial token distribution is broken down in the next tweet

41/ Initial Token Distribution

🔹 Community: 51.02% (510,217,359.767 $APT)
🔹 Core Contributors: 19.00% (190,000,000 $APT)
🔹 Foundation: 16.50% (165,000,000 $APT)
🔹 Investors: 13.48% (134,782,640.233 $APT)

42/ the community and foundation $APT tokens are designated for ecosystem-related items, such as grants, incentives & other growth initiatives. Distribution is anticipated to take place over a ten-year period

43/ all investors and current core contributors are subject to a four-year lock-up schedule, excluding staking rewards if applicable, from mainnet launch

44/ currently, over 82% of $APT tokens on the network are staked across all categories, with a majority locked in accordance with the distribution schedule. It's worth noting that both unlocked and locked tokens can be staked

45/ staking rewards & transaction fees impact the total supply of the $APT token

staking rewards start at 7% annually, declining by 1.5% annually until reaching a lower bound of 3.25% (expected to take over 50 years)

46/ $APT transaction fees are currently burned, although this may be revisited in the future via governance voting

47/ 🗳 Governance

@Aptos_Network on-chain governance allows community members to create and vote on proposals. These can include changes to blockchain parameters, core blockchain code and #Aptos framework modules

48/ 💼 Team & Funding

@AptosLabs was co-founded by @moshaikhs and @AveryChing. They and several other team members were part of the founding team of @DiemAssociation

49/ @AveryChing worked at Meta’s @novi cryptocurrency subsidiary prior to founding @AptosLabs and is the co-creator of the #DiemBFT consensus protocol for the #Diem blockchain

50/ @austinvirts is the former head of marketing at @solana and currently serves as the Director of Ecosystem at @AptosLabs. The team also boasts many experienced designers, analysts, engineers & more

51/ #Aptos has seen a meteoric rise in mindshare on the backs of a few eye popping fundraisings rounds

@AptosLabs has raised $200M strategic investment led by @a16z in March 2022, followed by a $150M Series A in July 2022

52/ in September 2022, @AptosLabs had another venture round, onboarding @BinanceLabs, @dragonfly_xyz and @BixinVentures as investors

53/ other notable investors include:

@coinbase
@jump_
@circle
@FTI_Global
@multicoincap
@BlockTower
@PayPal
@PaxosGlobal

54/ 🌐 Ecosystem

a number of #Aptos specific browser wallets have launched in testnet since the late summer fundraising, including @PontemNetwork Wallet, @FewchaWallet, @martian_wallet,
@EvoWalletAptos and a few others are available in Chrome & iOS

55/ @PontemNetwork, the #Aptos product studio behind the aforementioned wallet also launched #LiquidSwap, the first AMM on @Aptos_Network

56/ in addition, a few #NFT marketplaces were quick to launch on the network, including @BlueMove_OA, @TopazMarket and @nft_souffl3

no surprise that the $APT ecosystem hosts a lively #NFT scene already

57/ today, #Aptos is also home to a vibrant DeFi ecosystem, providing services ranging from DEXes to Lending and Liquid Staking with a total TVL of USD 60.5m

but let's dive in! 👀

> data from @DefiLlama 🦙

58/

🔄 DEXes:

🔹 @PancakeSwap
🔹 @ThalaLabs (ThalaSwap)
🔹 @PontemNetwork (LiquidSwap)
🔹 @animeswap_org
🔹 @TsunamiFinance_
🔹 @EconiaLabs (orderbook)

💸 Lending:

🔹 @AriesMarkets
🔹 @AptinLabs
🔹 @abel_finance

59/

💧 Liquid Staking:

🔹 @TortugaFinance
🔹 @Ditto_Finance

🪙 Stables / CDP:

🔹 @ThalaLabs (Thala CDP)
🔹 @ArgoUSD

🚀 Launchpad:

🔹 @AptoslaunchIO
🔹 @Meeiro_xyz

👨‍🌾 Yield:

🔹 @moledefi

60/ 🔍 Conclusion

in conclusion, @Aptos_Network is an innovative high-performance blockchain network with a focus on scalability by using a hyper-efficient consensus mechanism and parallel execution

61/ these cutting-edge technologies include the #Move language, #Narwhal and #Tusk consensus protocols and #BlockSMT, which in combination enable a secure, scalable, and decentralized network infrastructure

62/ the continued development and adoption of @Aptos_Network will depend on the growth of its ecosystem, including developers and users. But #Aptos definitely has the potential to emerge as a leading blockchain, driving the next generation of dApps

to stay updated on the #Aptos Ecosystem, follow these accounts 👇

@Aptos_Network
@alinush407
@moshaikhs
@david_wolinsky
@AveryChing
@AptosEcosystems
@AptosProjectOrg
@Aptos_insiders
@Aptos_DailyNews
@MoveMarketCap
@AptosHub4
@AptosInsights
@AptosAnalytics
@AptosBuII

also tagging a few frens that might want to check this out 🫶

@kunalgoel
@redvelvetzip
@hmalviya9
@Louround_
@AurumMege
@polkadotknight
@ksmchaos
@0xSalazar
@ShivanshuMadan
@0xJh4tM
@Windows95Man_

if you want to learn more about @Aptos_Network:

🔗 Check out the docs: aptos.dev

📚 Read the Aptos whitepaper: aptos.dev/aptos-white-pa…

🌐 Join the Aptos community: discord.gg/54r4VkrU