How to Buy Aptos (APT)

Want to jump straight to how to buy Aptos? You can buy Aptos (APT) on Binance (or Binance.US for U.S. investors), OKX, and Crypto.com.

Aptos received a lot of buzz because of its well-known development team, potential transaction speed and strong funding. The Layer 1 altcoin is working to prove that it is worth the hype and colossal valuation. Aptos is sitting at an $18 billion market cap. To put this in perspective, Coinbase holds just a $12 billion market cap and is one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. 

While speculation and high valuations are nothing new in crypto, Aptos (APT) takes the cake. The blockchain is still waiting for the users to justify its valuation. The plan appears to be that by dumping enough money and resources into building the network, the users will come.

What is Aptos?

Aptos is a Layer 1 blockchain with smart contract capability, similar to Ethereum. Aptos also uses the same consensus mechanism as Ethereum, proof of stake (POS). It likely it has some of the best tech in the Web3 world because the team and the base concept came from Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META), Facebook’s parent company. One key technical difference lies in Aptos’ programming language, Move. The Move language is based off Rust, and it intentionally helps to shorten the learning curve for developers already familiar with Rust development. 

Also unique is Aptos’ parallel execution system, which theoretically makes it much faster than Ethereum. The Aptos team aims to bring Web3 to the mainstream by creating an easy-to-use development ecosystem and blazing-fast speed.

Brief History of Aptos

Aptos was released in late 2022 and had a lot of hype circulating around its transaction speed. It offered promise in its development team, which was an experienced group coming from Meta. Its release led to a seed round worth $200 million from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). More investors piled in, including Tiger Global, Multicoin Capital and FTX, to name a few. Massive funding rounds are usually great for a project; however, this may not be entirely true for Aptos as one of its investors is Sam Bankman-Fried. 

Aptos also missed on many expectations — most importantly, its actual speed was nowhere close to its theoretical transaction throughput of 150,000 transactions per second (TPS). Even with these shortfalls, Aptos is one of the most hyped projects in the history of the crypto market. Only time will tell if it can live up to the initial excitement.

How to Buy Aptos (APT)

You can buy APT through a crypto exchange or a non-custodial wallet and decentralized exchange (DEX). The latter has become increasingly popular in light of the FTX collapse. The native wallet for Aptos is Petra.

Option 1: Use a Centralized Exchange

To purchase APT on a centralized exchange like Binance (or Binance.US for U.S. investors) or OKX, you first open an account. The signup process is simple and much easier than going through the process of using a wallet. Fill out the information, connect your bank and provide a form of identity to begin trading. Centralized exchanges offer most of the top cryptocurrencies. They also have a number of services that help users learn about the technology and often have a learn-to-earn feature, which lets users earn crypto by completing lessons.

While this process offers great features, keep in mind the risks. A centralized exchange is in control of your private keys, which means that you ultimately must trust the exchange. This factor goes directly against the original ethos of crypto. Bitcoin was created to give users rights over their money, blocking banks and the government from control over your assets. A centralized exchange gives this control back to an intermediary, alerts your bank and lets the government track your assets. If the exchange fails, you lose your assets. FTX, the second largest exchange in the world, filed for bankruptcy in December, and all user assets are frozen.

Option 2: Use a Wallet 

By using a wallet, you ensure that you are in control of your crypto. No centralized failures can cause you to lose your crypto, as the code is immutable. However, you still face risks. Without an intermediary, wallet users must protect themselves from scammers. Users also must remember their password. A substantial amount of crypto has been lost by users forgetting their passwords. When this happens, you have no bank to call to recover your password.

To best use non-custodial wallets, it is important to write down your password and seed phrase and keep it in a safe location. It is also important to pair a software wallet and hardware wallet for the best security and usability.

Best Hardware Wallet: Ledger Nano S

Ledger is the leading hardware wallet brand on the market with top-tier products. The Ledger Nano S Plus is among the most popular hardware wallets. It's built similarly to a flash drive and keeps private keys out of harm’s way from malicious attacks. It is important to use this wallet with a good software wallet.

Best Software Wallet: Petra

The best wallet tends to be the native version built by the same development team. In this case, that is the Petra wallet. The Coinbase version of a software wallet also supports APT. With a software wallet, you can connect to different decentralized applications (dApps), such as a DEX. For long-term storage, it is best to send your assets to an offline wallet (hardware wallet).

Step 3: Make your purchase

Centralized exchange purchase: As soon as your identity is approved and funds are wired to your exchange, you can begin purchasing crypto by selecting buy. You may need to search for Aptos, as it is still a relatively unknown coin. 

Wallet or DEX purchase: After sending funds to your wallet, you can connect to a DEX. You swap your USD for crypto stablecoins such as USDC or DAI and then swap for APT. You may need to add the Aptos contract to your wallet to track the amount you hold.

Buy, Sell or Convert Aptos (APT)

You can buy or sell APT with USDC or DAI. You can convert APT into other cryptocurrencies. For example, if you want more Ethereum (ETH) and are operating on a centralized exchange, you can convert APT to ETH.

Current Crypto Prices

After a rapid selloff in 2022, the past couple of months have been positive for the crypto market. Bitcoin led the charge, breaking $22,000 per coin. Altcoins tend to follow Bitcoin’s price action, so APT has seen a rally in price as well. Altcoins are trading with higher volatility than Bitcoin. In a down market, altcoins crash further, and in bull markets, they tend to see larger gains.

Is Aptos (APT) a Good Investment?

Aptos is a risky investment but holds upside. The crypto market has experienced strong volatility and is likely to remain this way for some time. If you are willing to go through price swings in the coming months and believe in Aptos’ technology, it could be a good long-term hold. Alternate Layer 1s have struggled to carve out much of a user base, as Ethereum has proven dominant. If Aptos proves to be much more scalable, it could be a great bet.