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"In 2019, Facebook, in collaboration with dozens of organizations both inside and outside the industry, launched the once-famous blockchain project Libra (later renamed Diem, but for readability, we'll use Libra throughout this text). Despite facing various regulatory pressures, Libra ultimately remained undeveloped. Nevertheless, a group of developers who had previously worked on Libra inherited some of the project's developments, such as the Move programming language, and took a more decentralized path to create a new set of Layer1 projects.
At present, publicly known Layer1 projects with Libra roots include Aptos, Sui, Linera, and more. Among these, Aptos appears to be leading in terms of funding, development progress, and infrastructure development.
Aptos was born in February of this year when over ten former Libra developers and researchers came together to establish Aptos Labs. They announced their intention to redevelop a network based on some of Libra's existing technological foundations. Specifically, Aptos will still be built upon the open-source codebase of Libra, using the Move programming language and MoveVM development environment. It will also adopt the iterated Diem-BFT consensus mechanism. However, in contrast to Libra, which focused on cross-border payments, Aptos aims to enhance the security and scalability of Layer1, creating an infrastructure network that can serve billions of people.
In mid-March, Aptos completed a $200 million strategic financing round led by a16z, with participation from institutions such as Tiger Global, Katie Haun, Multicoin Capital, Three Arrows Capital, FTX Ventures, and Coinbase Ventures. Later in the month, Aptos secured another round of financing, details of which were not fully disclosed. What is confirmed is that Binance Labs participated, and Aptos will closely cooperate with Binance in development, code review, infrastructure construction, and hackathons.
Currently, Aptos is conducting operational verification for the second round of the incentive testnet. Qualified validators (registration has ended) will receive a token reward.
As for regular users, you can currently access Aptos through terminal wallets like Martian and Fewcha. Suggested projects to interact with include the Aptos Name Service domain service, decentralized exchange Liquidswap, and NFT marketplace Topaz, among others." |
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