Key Insights:
- Aptos price stays under pressure, with bearish sentiment pointing to possible further downside.
- APT plans to cut staking rewards and introduce aggressive fee burns to reduce supply.
- Network activity remains weak despite a spike in new accounts after the proposal.
Investors have watched the Aptos price bleed out for months, but the network just announced new tokenomics that could stop the downtrend and perhaps flip the narrative.
The Aptos Foundation rolled out governance proposals on February 18, 2026, aimed at long-term fixes to its tokenomics. According to the official announcement, APT will slash staking rewards from 5.19% to 2.6% and will also hike gas fees by up to 10 times, with all fees paid in APT and fully burned.
The Foundation will further impose a total supply of 2.1 billion APT tokens and will permanently lock 210 million tokens held by the foundation into staking.
Future grants have shifted to performance-triggered distributions tied to strict KPIs. The network will transition from high-yield incentives that previously attracted yield farmers to mechanics that reward actual network usage and growth.
Major Aptos Network Changes Aim for Deflationary Shift
Despite several adjustments to the network infrastructure, the core goal for Aptos has remained to turn APT deflationary. With gas burns reduced emissions, burns could overtake the new supply if activity ramps up on the network.
User transactions on the Aptos Network have remained largely stagnant over the last 30 days, bouncing between 1 million and 5 million.
Meanwhile, daily active accounts (DAA) fell from 1.418 million on February 1 to 793,010 on February 19, further confirming the reduced network usage according to Aptos Analytics.
Interestingly, the number of new accounts created spiked to 205,786 on February 18, following the new network upgrade proposal announcement.
Venture Capital (VC) unlocks have slowed down sharply after 2026, cutting annual emission cliffs by 60%. Data from SoSoValue shows unlocked VC holding stands at 134.77 million APT (11.27% of the total supply).
The next unlock will be on March 19, where only 2.8 million APT tokens ($2.4 million at current prices) will be added to the supply.
The hard cap has eliminated fears that plagued earlier models, and the jump in newly created accounts reflected this sentiment.
Aptos Price Retests Historic Lows
Aptos price has extended its brutal slide despite the good news. APT traded at $0.8626, down 4.7% in 24 hours.
Aptos was trading below both the 50-day and 200-day Simple Moving Averages (SMA), which indicates deep bearish momentum. Meanwhile, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovered at 25 and may be headed lower.
Despite the positive news, APT Exchange Liquidation data showed there was an overwhelmingly large 7-day cumulative short liquidation leverage ($10.87 million) compared to corresponding longs ($3.11 million).
This disparity shows bearish sentiment currently dominates the Aptos market because traders anticipate prices will continue dropping in the coming days.
A closer look at the liquidation data revealed heavy sell walls around $0.895 and $0.951 price levels. These sell walls may absorb any buy attempts by bulls.
On the lower side, the buy volume was thin, meaning that buyers capable of holding up the price remained weak. This may result in a continuous free fall of price, likely hitting the 0.618 Fib extension target at $0.5740 if demand fails to step in.
Could a Bounce Be Coming for Aptos Price?
The Aptos news broke as the network’s metrics, like active addresses, were in free fall. The recent spike in new accounts showed signs of life, but not enough to impact the price against the current heavy bearish sentiment.
Short-term, yield chasers have rotated or are rotating out of Aptos, keeping its price suppressed. However, Aptos’ price may be running out of bearish momentum, meaning a swing high may be just around the corner.