Aptos Foundation plans to permanently lock and stake 210 million APT as part of a tokenomics overhaul outlined on February 18. Its announcement also proposes nearly halving annual staking rewards, with governance approval required for protocol changes.
The foundation says the locked tokens would never be sold or distributed. They would remain staked to secure the network, with the resulting rewards supporting foundation operations instead of treasury-token sales. The commitment removes potential saleable supply rather than destroying the tokens.
A planned governance proposal would reduce the annual staking reward rate from 5.19% to 2.6%. The foundation is also exploring higher relative rewards for longer staking commitments while keeping aggregate emissions within the lower overall limit.
Other proposals include a hard supply cap of 2.1 billion APT and an initial tenfold increase in gas fees. Because Aptos transaction fees are burned, higher fees and greater network activity could increase token destruction. The announcement does not establish that these measures have been approved.
The reforms aim to tie supply more closely to usage as Aptos supports financial applications. CoinScreamer previously covered BlackRock’s BUIDL fund reaching $100 million in cumulative onchain payouts across its multichain deployment, which includes Aptos. Whether APT becomes deflationary would depend on burns exceeding new issuance.
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