Aptos to launch crypto wallet in South Korea, more inside

• Aptos has a long history of operating in South Korea, with some complicated events.
• The firm saw increased user interaction amid a crypto winter in Q3.

Blockchain firm Aptos [APT] and Atomrigs Lab have partnered with SK Telecom, a leading South Korean telecommunications company, to build a crypto wallet service.

SK telecom signed a tripartite agreement with #Aptos, a rapidly-emerging and scaling layer 1 mainnet, and Atomrigs Lab, SK telecom’s technology partner. Through the collaboration with Aptos, SK telecom is committed to delivering a seamless and secure Web3 experience for users. pic.twitter.com/Ga9qoZz84W

— SK telecom (@SKtelecom) November 7, 2023

SK Telecom highlighted that its collaboration with Aptos will be its first non-Ethereum [ETH] virtual machine blockchain integration. The wallet product is designed to grant users access to a blockchain-based application on their phones to store tokens.

A long history in South Korea

Aptos has a unique and complicated history of operating in South Korea.

Last year, the Web3 firm ventured into gaming as it announced a partnership with NPixel, a prominent gaming studio based in South Korea, in November 2022.

In an amusing affair, Aptos got associated with a joke in the country early this year.

What happened was that Koreans began calling APT, the native token of Aptos, “apartment.” They had been buying and holding APT hoping that it will one day be high enough to support an apartment purchase.

For those of you wondering why $APT is $17. Aptos is a meme coin in Korea.

The #1 asset class in Korea is real estate — more specifically, Apartments.

Retail is calling Aptos “apartment” claiming people can one day afford to purchase an actual apartment if they hold $APT.

— Alex Shin (@AlexShin) February 4, 2023

The narrative fueled a tremendous performance of APT on the charts. It led to its market cap rising from $500 million to $2.5 billion in February.

In September, a fake token resembling APT surfaced on Upbit, a leading Korean crypto exchange. A bug on Upbit caused the exchange to accept fake tokens because it didn’t thoroughly check the underlying source code.

As a result, the exchange temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals before resuming services. However, it unexpectedly led to decentralized exchanges on Aptos experiencing a 678% uptick in trading volumes.

Increased user interaction in Q3

Blockchain analytics firm Messari published a report last month, detailing the state of Aptos in the third quarter of 2023. Notably, average daily transactions, active addresses, and new addresses grew 207%, 329%, and 410% QoQ, respectively.

The increase in network usage was driven by sustained DeFi growth.

Its revenue rose from $147,100 to $268,000 within a quarter. However, its circulating market cap fell from $1.5 billion to $1.28 billion.

Source: Messari

We can see that the crypto winter during Q3 certainly impeded Aptos’ growth, but it saw a lot of interaction with users during the period.

The token recorded an extraordinary surge of 38% in its price within a month amid the ongoing bull run. It was exchanging hands at $7.58 at press time.

Source: APT/USD, TradingView