Coinspeaker
Arthur Hayes Predicts Aptos (APT) to Flip Solana (SOL)
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has made a bombshell prediction that Layer 1 (L1) blockchain Aptos (APT) will flip Solana (SOL) within the next 2 to 3 years. Speaking in a recent interview with Raoul Pal, Hayes noted the imminent flipping might push Aptos to become the number 2 L1 protocol after Ethereum.
Aptos and Solana: L1 Competition To Heat Up
The dominance of Ethereum is constantly challenged by newer and more innovative rivals. Solana came onto the scene in March 2020 with a promise of correcting the flaws of Ethereum.
Some of the identified flaws include scalability, speed, and cost. At the time of its launch, the industry needed a major alternative as congestion woes rocked the Ethereum ecosystem amid the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) explosion.
It took a while for Solana to gain the needed traction, however, it is one of the most revered protocols today. The Solana explosion began with the launch of its meme coin BONK in December 2022. For the first time, the memecoin revolution spread outside Ethereum and this quickly drew the attention of many.
The success of BONK attracted many other meme coins to the Solana platform. This comes amid the cheaper minting fees that also triggered innovative DeFi platforms to launch on Solana. Despite this popularity, Solana soon hit its own congestion woes, reliving the strains that engulfed Ethereum at a point.
According to Arthur Hayes, Aptos is on track to take over the scene in 1 to 3 years. While he did not expatiate on reasons for his conviction, he said more insights will be issued in September.
The choice of Aptos is not surprising considering the protocol has never recorded any downtime since inception. The digital currency ecosystem is always exploring the next best alternative and Aptos fits the profile of a great candidate.
The L1 protocol was designed with a novel smart contract programming language called Move. Move is a fast Rust-based programming language that was independently developed by engineers from Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META). These engineers worked on the firm’s Diem blockchain.
While Diem did not see the light of day, the team’s expertise became showcased in Aptos with the core goal of making it fit for commercial utilization.
What the Future Holds
Besides the projection into the ranking of core Layer 1 blockchain, the Arthur Hayes interview also trickled down to exchanges. He predicted that the biggest risk he is foreseeing is that a major crypto custodian would be hacked. This hack might lead to a loss of $50 billion to $100 billion in cryptocurrencies.
While breaches are not uncommon in the crypto ecosystem, no hack has resulted in a $50 billion loss before. The risk, however, with the massive institutional embrace cannot be ruled out. With the bull cycle in full swing amid the impact of spot Bitcoin ETF products, Hayes noted that this security breach might effectively signal the end of this cycle.