The Aptos Foundation conducted a retroactive token Airdrop overnight to reward early network participants.
The foundation allocated 20.1 million APT tokens as an airdrop late Tuesday ET, representing 2% of its initial Total Supply of 1 billion APT, according to an announcement on Twitter. These tokens had a value of $200 million to $260 million based on the token’s market price shortly after the airdrop opened.
A total 110,235 crypto addresses on Aptos were eligible to receive the airdrop across two categories. This first category included users that finished applying to the Aptos incentivized Testnet and these users can claim 300 APT tokens. The second eligible category consists of users rewarded 150 APT tokens for minting an Aptos Zero NFT on the testnet.
Founded by former Meta employees, Aptos raised $150 million in July. Aptos’s proof-of-stake blockchain leverages the Move Smart contract programming language, claiming to offer high performance. The network, secured by 102 block validators, had its genesis transaction take place on Oct. 12. Before the Mainnet release, the network went through a vigorous incentivized test network program beginning in May, which consisted of three separate phases.
For the airdrop, the Aptos team did not implement any mechanism to remove airdrop hunters or sybil users — people who interact with crypto projects solely in the hopes of claiming future airdrops. Such hunters do so by creating many wallet addresses that perform one transaction on these projects so as to qualify for any future retroactive airdrop from several accounts. These airdrop hunters often sell the tokens immediately upon receiving them, an action that can drive down the price of the coin.
The airdrop came after Aptos announceddetails of the APT token distribution and provided clarity for the first time on how many tokens will be directed to each of the project’s stakeholders. In a summary version, the team said that the “initial total supply” of the Aptos token will be 1 billion tokens, to be distributed between investors, the Aptos Foundation, core contributors, and a community pool.
APT token traded down 40% after the token was listed on exchanges, dropping from $13.7 to $8.3 at the time of writing. Currently, Aptos has a fully diluted Market Capitalization of $8.3 billion.
