Aptos Ends Four-Year Token Unlocks as Monthly Releases Fall 60%

Aptos has closed the four-year unlock schedule for the people who backed it first. Core contributors and early investors are now fully vested, and monthly token releases drop from about 11.31 million APT to 4.54 million, a fall of roughly 60%.

That single number is the story. For four years, a large slice of APT arrived on a timer. Most of it has now arrived, and what remains on the schedule is smaller and slower.

What Just Ended

Aptos launched mainnet in October 2022. Grants to core contributors and early investors carried a 12-month cliff, then vested monthly through month 48. With that window closed, the Foundation said the four-year unlock cycle for initial investors and core contributors concludes in October 2026, reducing annualized supply unlocks by 60%.

The Numbers Behind the 60% Cut

At genesis, core contributors were allocated 190 million APT and early investors 134.78 million, a combined 324.78 million tokens, or about 32.5% of the 1 billion APT minted at launch.

Those two groups have been paid out. Planned monthly releases fall from roughly 11.31 million APT to 4.54 million, and the same 60% cut holds when the schedule is measured over a full year.

The schedule is not empty. Only the Community and Foundation pools still unlock, each releasing 1/120 of its remaining balance every month through 2032. About 331.69 million APT of the genesis supply stays locked in those two pools.

The Other Side of the Supply Ledger

Lower unlocks describe only part of supply, because Aptos mints and burns too.

Staking is the mint side. The network issues roughly 19.8 million APT a year to validators, and the Foundation intends to propose cutting the annual staking rewards rate from 5.19% to 2.6%.

Fees pull the other way. Every gas fee on Aptos is paid in APT and burned, and the Foundation planned a governance proposal to raise gas fees tenfold. Even then, it estimated a stablecoin transfer would cost about $0.00014.

Then there is Decibel, an onchain perpetual futures exchange incubated by Aptos. The Foundation projects that as Decibel approaches 100+ markets, it burns more than 32 million APT a year, which could exceed what staking mints.

A hard cap now bounds the total. Aptos set a 2.1 billion APT ceiling through governance, and the Foundation permanently locked and staked 210 million APT, about 37% of its mainnet holdings. Of the 1 billion APT minted at mainnet, 196 million has gone out as staking rewards, leaving 904 million of headroom under the cap.

The Price Into the Unlock

APT rallied into the change. Trackers put the four-week gain to October 13 somewhere between roughly 38% and 51%, depending on the window and the provider, and the token changed hands around $0.82 to $0.85 in mid-October.

A climb into a known supply reduction is a familiar pattern, with traders positioning before the event rather than after it.

On-chain activity reads cooler. The stablecoin market cap on Aptos tracked by one data provider fell about 17.5% over four weeks to roughly $910 million, and DeFi total value locked on the chain remains low. The unlock also landed alongside an optional encrypted mempool on mainnet, a feature designed to shield users from MEV, the front-running bots can do by spotting a trade before it settles.

The mechanical part is settled. About 4.54 million APT a month will keep unlocking, not 11.31 million. Whether a rally built ahead of the cut holds up against a schedule two fifths its old size is the question the market still has to answer.