The Aptos Foundation has proposed a sweeping tokenomics overhaul including a 2.1 billion APT hard cap, lower staking rewards and a tenfold gas fee increase to drive long-term deflation.
The governance proposals would transition Aptos away from its subsidy-based emissions model towards performance-linked supply mechanics, with 1.196 billion APT currently in circulation and no existing maximum cap.
“The Aptos network is transitioning to performance-driven tokenomics designed to align supply mechanics with network utilisation,”
Said the Aptos Foundation, adding:
“This update replaces bootstrap-era subsidy with mechanisms tied to transaction activity, establishing a framework where burns can exceed emissions as high-throughput applications scale.”
Under the plan, annual staking rewards would fall from 5.19% to 2.6% while offering higher incentives for longer lock-ups, alongside a proposed 10-fold increase in gas fees which are burned in APT to help reduce net issuance.
“Even with a 10X increase, stablecoin transfers would still be the lowest in the world at around $0.00014, making it the ideal blockchain for stablecoins, payments, and any other similar high-volume transactions,”
Said the Aptos Foundation, and following the announcement the Aptos share price was unchanged at $0.00.
The foundation also proposed permanently locking 210 million APT for staking, which it described as functionally equivalent to a token burn, while tightening grant key performance indicators and exploring a token buyback programme or reserve mechanism.
The overhaul comes as token unlock pressure is set to ease after October’s four-year cycle ends with a projected 60% reduction in annualised supply unlocks, and as institutions including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Apollo deploy hundreds of millions of dollars onchain, prompting the foundation to argue that emissions without reform would continue indefinitely without performance requirements.
At the time of reporting, Aptos price was $0.8724.