The Aptos Foundation has announced a sweeping overhaul of its tokenomics, headlined by the permanent locking of 210 million APT tokens and a reduction in annual staking rewards from 5.19% to 2.6%. The changes, which took effect through onchain Proposal #183, passed with 335.2 million APT voting in favor and only around 1,500 voting against.
According to reports, the 210 million APT lock represents nearly 18% of the total supply and about 37% of the Foundation's mainnet holdings. These tokens will be permanently staked and never sold or distributed; staking rewards from the position will fund Foundation operations. The Aptos Foundation also said it is considering a buyback program supported by cash reserves and future revenue, while future ecosystem grants will be tied to performance milestones.
On October 12, 2026 — the fourth anniversary of the mainnet launch — Aptos will formally conclude the four-year vesting schedule for core contributors and early backers. At genesis, core contributors were assigned 190 million APT and early backers received 134.78 million APT, a combined 324.78 million tokens, or 32.48% of the 1 billion APT initially minted. Both groups received their final monthly tranche on September 12, 2026, after a 12-month cliff and monthly vesting through month 48.
This closure cuts planned monthly APT releases by roughly 60%, from 11.31 million tokens to 4.54 million. Annual planned releases fall from approximately 135.7 million APT to 54.5 million. The remaining monthly emissions come solely from Community and Aptos Foundation pools, which disburse 1/120 of their remaining balance each month until 2032. Another 331.69 million APT of genesis supply remains locked in vesting across these pools.
The tokenomics overhaul also includes a hard cap of 2.1 billion APT and a tenfold increase in gas fees, while transaction fees remain fully burned — around 1.9 million APT had been burned from launch through mid-September 2026. As of September 30, circulating supply stood at 871.02 million APT out of a total supply near 1.2 billion. With about 763 million APT, or 63% of all tokens, staked with validators, the reduced 2.6% reward rate now mints approximately 19.8 million APT per year. Unstaking takes up to 14 days.
Aptos continues to attract institutional interest: the network hosts roughly $723 million in real-world assets, with Franklin Templeton and BlackRock operating tokenized funds there, according to a January report. On January 14, 2026, Bitnomial launched the first regulated APT futures in the United States.
