Training note, written on 27 September 2026 from data as of 26 September 2026. Not part of the published series.

Aptos: price up, fundamentals weak

Luca Valente — dictated note, lightly edited

Let's take a look at Aptos after the price rose 19.5 points against the group over the last month. So the market seems to be betting on Aptos. The problem is that the use of this chain, whose token is called APT, has not followed the price; in fact quite the opposite, and so we record this divergence. But first let's look at the data.

Stablecoins lost 18.3%, while those of the same group are flat, so we are dealing with a 19.1-point difference, at 949.9 million dollars today. TVL also fell, 7.3%, while the reference group actually grew by 9.7%, so there is a difference of 17 points less; we are at 55.9 million, flat since August. Development also fell, 14.7%. It has to be said that the group median fell too, 10.4%, but Aptos sits 4.3 points below the reference group. So the only thing that went up, essentially, is the price: on all the measures of use Aptos fell compared with the other reference chains.

The unusual fact, a divergence: on 23 September stablecoins fell 15.2% in one day and they never came back; they were 952.7 million and today they are 949.9 million. So the measured stablecoin stock fell while the price goes up: this is the most important divergence. For those who think it can go up, I suggest looking at derivatives: open interest is 31.9 million, but this level alone does not show whether derivatives contributed to the rise.

Now, there are things the data do not say. For example, nobody knows why the stablecoins left; nobody knows either why the price went up, who is buying APT. And then we do not know users and wallets, what the situation is, where these APT are held, where they came from, where they went in.

If by 26 October TVL and stablecoins are more than five points above the group, this judgment, my negative judgment on this rise, may fall. But in the coming days I would go and see whether the stablecoins go back towards 1.1 billion, how much TVL grows compared with the other chains, and I would run this check because the price grows but everything else is falling.

Data: DefiLlama, GitHub; 30-day sums for flows, end-of-window for stocks; peer group: 37 chains, one product per family; as of 26 September 2026.

Peer group: 37 chains tracked by DefiLlama (who they are). 'Net of the group' is the 30-day change minus the group's median.

Not financial advice. This is a research note based on public on-chain data.