The Aptos Foundation has announced a major overhaul of APT tokenomics. It is permanently locking 210 million $APT coins. Other decisions include lowering staking rewards, higher gas fees, and a hard cap on the token’s total supply. All these changes are meant to reduce APT’s new supply, increase token burns, and move the asset toward a deflationary supply model.

Aptos to Permanently Lock 210 Million APT, Raises Gas Fees

Under the new tokenomics framework, the Aptos Foundation will permanently lock and stake 210 million APT. These tokens represent nearly 18% of the current circulating supply. The locked tokens will not be sold or distributed. The Foundation will also reduce annual staking rewards from 5.19% to 2.6%.

Another major change is about Aptos network fees. The blockchain plans to increase gas fees by 10 times. However, all of the collected fees will be permanently burned. The Foundation is also preparing to introduce a hard total supply cap of 2.1 billion $APT.

Lower staking emissions and higher fee burns will together reduce the rate at which new $APT enter circulation. The eventual impact of the burn mechanism will depend on network activity and transaction volumes. All of these measures are part of a broader tokenomics overhaul.

New Tokenomics to Reduce APT Unlocks

The tokenomics changes coincide with the end of Aptos’ initial four-year unlock cycle for core contributors. Following the completion of this cycle, annualized APT token unlocks are expected to decline by approximately 60%. The blockchain is also planning a token buyback and burn mechanism.

The combination of the permanent 210 million APT lock, lower staking rewards, higher gas fees, and fee burns are intended to slow the growth of circulating tokens.

The 10-fold increase in gas fees and the permanent burn mechanism can have an immediate effect on APT’s supply dynamics. However, the overall impact on APT will depend on network usage, staking participation, and the implementation of the proposed changes.