Can the Aptos NFT Scene Compete With Ethereum’s?

The hype around Aptos is driving intense activity to its various NFT marketplaces. There are signs, however, that the enthusiasm for Aptos NFTs may not stay consistent in the long run. 

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An Emerging NFT Market

Launched on October 17, Aptos is a Proof-of-Stake Layer 1 blockchain conceived by former Meta engineers. The protocol aims to leverage its new smart contract language, Move, in order to reach a throughput of over 100,000 transactions per second. Though the Aptos mainnet is barely a week old, its NFT scene has already seen intense activity, with multiple marketplaces competing for trading volume over a couple of dozen collections.

Among the competing platforms, Topaz appears to have taken the lead. At the time of writing, the marketplace had reached total trading volumes ranging from about 82,000 APT ($779,000 at today’s prices) to 1,200 APT ($11,400) across its twenty largest collections (among several hundred listed), with the top four collections each recording more than 20,500 APT ($194,750). According to the Topaz team, the marketplace reached $1.1 million in total trading volume within four and a half days of its launch; a day later, the number stood at about $1.8 million. 

While there currently exists no tools to confirm these metrics independently, the surging trading volume of multiple Topaz NFT listings seems to indicate the platform is getting traction. In the last 24 hours, collections such as Pixel Aptos Citizen, Aptos Birds, and Moonlight saw their trading volumes increase by 645,981%, 17,112%, and 8,320%, respectively—and they are far from the only ones.

Rival…