Aptos tokenomics shift toward performance-driven, deflationary supply with Decibel and hard cap

A major redesign of Aptos tokenomics aims to match supply dynamics with real network usage, introducing performance-driven incentives and new deflationary levers for the ecosystem.

Network maturity and technical performance

The Aptos mainnet launched in October 2022 and has since evolved from a generalized layer-1 into infrastructure supporting specific, high-throughput institutional use cases at scale.

Today, the network operates with block times under 50ms, 99.99% uptime, and no major exploits to date. Moreover, a native ecosystem has emerged with nearly 500 active monthly developers contributing across 9.7k open-source repositories and more than 200 live projects in DeFi, payments, and infrastructure.

App revenue on Aptos has risen 1,552% to $33.5M, signaling growing product-market fit. At the same time, major institutions including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Apollo have deployed hundreds of millions of dollars onchain, validating the network for institutional-grade activity.

Decibel will launch on Aptos as the first fully onchain decentralized exchange that executes every order, match, and cancel directly on the base chain. This marks a shift from generic blockchain infrastructure toward high-frequency trading products built around Aptos’s Global Trading Engine architecture.

From bootstrap subsidy to performance-driven supply

During the bootstrap era, high inflation funded infrastructure and ecosystem development. However, that approach is not sustainable for a network now processing institutional-level economic activity and aiming for durable monetary credibility.

The Aptos Foundation is therefore proposing structural tokenomics reforms that replace broad subsidy-based emissions with performance-driven mechanisms. These reforms are intended to create conditions for reduced emissions, increased burns, and a potential decline in circulating supply as utilization scales.

Under this framework, aptos tokenomics move from early-stage bootstrapping toward a model where issuance must be supported by measurable network demand, activity, and throughput.

Current APT supply and emission path

There are currently 1.196 billion APT in circulation. Importantly, supply dynamics are already improving without any protocol intervention due to the existing vesting and unlock schedule.

The four-year unlock cycle for initial investors and core contributors concludes in October 2026, reducing annualized supply unlocks by about 60%. Moreover, Foundation grant distributions are trending lower as bootstrap commitments complete, with more than a 50% year-over-year decline expected from 2026 to 2027.

This natural inflection point lowers emissions substantially. That said, without explicit reforms, emissions would continue indefinitely with no hard ceiling, no performance requirements, and no direct link between token issuance and onchain economic activity.

The newly proposed mechanisms are designed to introduce these structural constraints, setting a clear framework for future supply and emission behavior.

Gas fee increase and burn-based incentives

The Aptos blockchain currently ranks among the lowest-cost networks, with transaction fees orders of magnitude below most competing chains. All transaction or “gas” fees paid in APT are already burned at the protocol level.

Because fees are extremely low, the Aptos Foundation will propose via governance an initial 10x increase in gas fees, with potential additional adjustments over time. However, even after a 10x increase, stablecoin transfers are projected to remain the cheapest globally, at roughly $0.00014 per transaction.

This keeps Aptos positioned as an ideal chain for stablecoins, payments, and similar high-volume use cases while materially increasing the aggregate amount of APT burned. Moreover, higher onchain activity from new applications would further amplify total burn despite low per-transaction costs.

In combination, increased gas fees and expanding transaction volume are expected to meaningfully raise the amount of APT removed from circulation through protocol burns.

Decibel as a scalable deflationary engine

Decibel, an onchain decentralized exchange protocol on Aptos, introduces a powerful new deflationary mechanism by driving high-frequency transaction activity that consumes and burns APT in gas fees at scale.

The protocol was incubated by Aptos Labs in partnership with the Decibel Foundation and is designed as one of the first fully decentralized exchanges to execute 100% of trading activity onchain, including every order, match, and cancel.

With full onchain execution, the launch of Decibel mainnet will significantly increase transaction throughput on the Aptos blockchain. At scale, aggregate transaction fees can generate substantial APT burns, even if fees per trade remain extremely low.

The logic is straightforward: the more markets listed and products supported by Decibel, the higher the required operational TPS. As Decibel approaches 100+ markets going into next year, it is projected to burn more than 32 million APT annually.

As Decibel further scales toward 10,000 TPS and beyond across markets and new product lines, this projected burn rate would increase proportionally. Together with the proposed gas fee increase, this creates a strong, usage-driven deflationary channel.

Introducing a 2.1 billion APT hard cap

The Aptos Foundation will propose, via onchain governance, a protocol-level hard cap of 2.1 billion APT. Once approved, no additional tokens could ever be minted beyond this ceiling.

Currently, 1.196 billion APT circulate in the market. Of this, 1 billion APT was minted at mainnet launch, while 196 million APT has been distributed as staking rewards since then. With a hard cap of 2.1 billion, there remains 904 million APT of headroom, or roughly 43% of the total cap.

These additional tokens may be distributed as staking rewards, in declining amounts over time, to compensate validators who secure the network. However, as supply approaches the cap, staking rewards would eventually be phased out, with validators instead funded by transaction fees and growing onchain activity.

The expectation is that APT burns will outpace emissions well before the hard cap is reached. In that scenario, the cap functions as a long-term supply safety mechanism rather than a binding endpoint, while still providing predictable monetary policy and ample runway for ecosystem development.

Permanent staking and effective supply removal

The Aptos Foundation will also ensure that 210 million APT is locked and permanently staked on the network. These tokens will never be sold or distributed and will remain locked indefinitely.

This amount represents nearly 18% of current circulating supply and about 37% of the original token holdings controlled by the Foundation at mainnet. Functionally, this is similar to a large-scale token burn, as 210 million APT are removed from any potential market sale or distribution.

The Foundation will stake these tokens in perpetuity, funding its operations through staking rewards rather than treasury token sales. Moreover, this approach aligns the Foundation’s incentives more closely with long-term network security, validator health, and performance.

Going forward, the Aptos Foundation will focus future grants and rewards on milestone-based structures that vest only when recipients hit specific goals linked to Aptos’s role as a global trading engine.

Milestone-based grants and protocol buybacks

For new grants related to the global trading engine, if key performance indicators are not met, token distributions will be deferred rather than canceled. They will unlock only once the agreed performance is demonstrated.

This creates a direct connection between ecosystem success and token issuance, ensuring that participants effectively earn their inflation through measurable contribution instead of receiving tokens unconditionally.

In addition, the Aptos Foundation has committed to exploring a protocol buyback program or reserve that would acquire APT on the open market according to predefined market conditions.

Such a buyback mechanism would be funded using a portion of cash on hand and future Foundation revenue, including proceeds from licensing, ecosystem investments, and other income sources. Together with burns, this could further support long-term price and supply stability.

Path toward a deflationary APT supply

The deflationary roadmap combines several levers: a proposal to cut staking reward rates in half, a 2.1 billion APT hard cap, a natural reduction of unlocks of around 60% year-over-year, and the Foundation’s permanent staking of 210 million tokens.

Once these mechanisms are implemented, the mix of declining emissions, Decibel-driven transaction burns, higher gas fee burns, and potential buybacks can create a crossover point where APT removed from circulation exceeds new APT entering circulation.

At that crossover, total token supply would begin to decline, turning APT into a structurally deflationary asset over time, provided network usage remains strong or continues to rise.

Ecosystem impact for token holders, builders, and validators

For tokenomics specifically, supply pressure is expected to decrease materially starting in 2027. Lower staking rewards, higher burn from increased gas fees, and Decibel DEX activity will all reduce effective available APT supply.

Furthermore, the 210 million APT that the Aptos Foundation permanently stakes removes significant potential sell-side liquidity. Future grants will be conditioned on performance milestones, so network participants must achieve concrete goals before additional tokens enter circulation.

For builders, grant programs will transition to milestone-based vesting tied to measurable usage, revenue, or trading-volume metrics. Foundation resources will be concentrated on high-throughput trading and money-movement infrastructure, areas where Aptos’s architecture offers differentiated performance advantages.

For validators, staking rewards will continue but are expected to be reduced, with the Foundation set to propose an annual reward rate of 2.6%. This aims to balance incentives between validators and the broader ecosystem.

Validator hardware costs are also projected to decline with AIP-139, improving economics for infrastructure operators. Meanwhile, the Foundation’s 210 million permanently staked tokens will remain delegated to validators to support long-term network security and operational continuity.

In summary, the proposed changes create a performance-first monetary framework in which emissions slow, burns and buybacks increase, and the Aptos economy gradually transitions toward a sustainable, and potentially deflationary, financial network.