Former Meta employees working on the now-defunct Diem stablecoin project have raised $200 million to attract developers to Aptos, a new cryptocurrency project.
Aptos was founded by Novi’s former Head of Strategic Partnerships, Mo Shaikh, and the same company’s CTO, Avery Ching. At Aptos, they hold the positions of CEO and CTO, respectively.
Bloomberg reports that the Aptos development team is working on a first-level blockchain using the Move programming language created for Diem. The Aptos blockchain is promised to be cheap, scalable, fast and secure. The test network of this blockchain has already been launched and now the company is attracting new developers and projects to use its network.
To attract developers, Aptos executives held a $200 million round of funding. Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) became the main investor. Companies such as Three Arrows Capital, FTX Ventures, Paxos, and Coinbase Ventures also invested in funds. The funds will be used to expand the team and support third-party developers who create their projects based on the Aptos network.
According to Aptos, the company involved specialists from Anchorage, Binance and Coinbase in developing its blockchain. The main network of the project should be launched in the III quarter of this year:
“Later in Q2, we will launch an advanced testnet that will enable blockchain scaling and stress testing before deploying the Aptos mainnet. We invite validators and other infrastructure providers to join our community now.”
Recall that in early February, the Diem Association officially announced the termination of the development of its stablecoin, as well as the sale of its intellectual property and other assets.
