Aptos (APT), which has risen nearly 500 percent in a few weeks, is reminiscent of XRP’s move in 2017, according to Markus Thielen, head of research and strategy at digital financial services platform Matrixport.
Storm Aptos in South Korea
In 2017, when XRP hit a record 10x in a few weeks, this price action was largely driven by South Korean individual investors. At that time, 50 percent of XRP’s trading volume belonged to South Korea alone. According to Matrixport’s research, a similar situation exists with APT these days. In fact, by far the largest share of Aptos volume is on the South Korean exchange Upbit. The APT/KRW trading pair on Upbit accounts for 51 percent ($320 million) of the coin’s total trading volume in the last 24 hours. It is followed by the APT/USDT pair ($214 million) on Binance.
“Two big ‘short squeezes’ have blown the price”
Thielen suggested that the price action over the last 48 hours was due to the formation of two big ‘short squeezes’.
Aptos was founded by former developers of Libra, the cryptocurrency project led by Facebook. Aptos, which was released in October 2022, was criticized for its lack of token economy and transparency, and the price of APT had dropped by 70 percent in the early days. Of the current APT supply, 19 percent is reserved for the main developer team, 16 percent for the Aptos Foundation, 13 percent for investors participating in a private investment round, and the remaining 51 percent for the community. Earlier this year, Aptos had raised $200 million from investment firm a16z.
