Aptos is a new public chain (proof of stake) developed by former Facebook employees that aims to achieve high throughput and high security for smart contracts built using the Move language. It uses BFT consensus and the Move programming language to build the most secure and scalable Layer 1 blockchain.
Aptos is running on the fourth iteration of its consensus protocol, Aptos BFT, which it claims is the lowest latency and most advanced iteration to date. It separates consensus from execution and greatly reduces transaction execution time by optimizing authentication and data structures. One of the technical characteristics of Aptos is the use of parallel transaction execution, which achieves high scalability.
Most blockchains currently use serial transaction execution, meaning transactions are included in blocks one after another and must wait for the previous transaction to complete before the next one can be made. This approach makes it easy to confirm the status of the transaction, but limits scalability. Parallel execution, on the other hand, means that multiple transactions can be executed at the same time by generally taking a snapshot of the current state and then processing multiple transactions simultaneously.
This improves transaction throughput, but the challenge is how to prevent different transactions from affecting each other. Aptos currently claims that its testnet has more than 20,000 nodes and 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) and its ultimate goal is 100,000 TPS. However, whether this goal can be achieved, and whether the network can operate stably without downtime remains to be seen after the mainnet is online.