Validators process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Aptos is a smart contract platform for decentralized applications (a blockchain). Aptos was founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching and launched in 2022.

APT token holders own and govern the protocol. They currently don’t take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). Aptos’ investors include Binance Labs, Jump Crypto, Apollo, etc.

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# Aptos Block time Methodology

## 1. Overview

Block time measures the average time interval between consecutive blocks on the Aptos blockchain, expressed in milliseconds and aggregated daily. This metric provides insight into the network's block production consistency and performance. The calculation determines the time difference between each block and its immediate predecessor, then averages these intervals across each day to produce a daily block time metric.

## 2. Data sources

- **Aptos blockchain block data**: Raw block records from the Aptos network containing block timestamps and block heights
- **Block metadata**: Block height numbers and precise timestamps for when each block was produced on the Aptos network

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Block data preparation
- **Purpose**: Extract and prepare block timestamps and numbers for interval calculation
- **Logic**: Retrieves `block_timestamp` and `block_number` (cast from `block_height`) from Aptos blockchain block data. Filters out the genesis block by requiring `block_number` greater than 0, ensuring only valid blocks with predecessors are included in the calculation.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (when the block was produced), `block_number` (sequential block identifier)

### Component B: Consecutive block pairing
- **Purpose**: Pair each block with its immediate predecessor to enable time interval calculation
- **Logic**: Uses window functions to associate each block with the previous block's timestamp and number. Orders blocks by `block_number` in ascending order and applies LAG function to get `previous_timestamp` and `previous_block_number` for each row. This creates pairs of consecutive blocks needed for time difference calculation.
- **Key fields**: `previous_timestamp` (timestamp of preceding block), `previous_block_number` (block number of preceding block)

### Component C: Block time calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculate the time interval between consecutive blocks
- **Logic**: Computes the time difference in milliseconds between `block_timestamp` and `previous_timestamp` using timestamp difference functions. Filters to include only records where `previous_timestamp` exists (not null) and where blocks are truly consecutive (`block_number - previous_block_number = 1`). This ensures accurate block time calculation by excluding any gaps or missing blocks in the sequence.
- **Key fields**: `block_time` (milliseconds between consecutive blocks), `timestamp` (truncated to day level for aggregation)

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: All calculated block time intervals are grouped by day using truncated timestamps
- **Time aggregation**: Block times are aggregated daily by averaging all `block_time` values that fall within each calendar day
- **Metadata addition**: Adds standard metric identifiers including `timestamp_grain` (day), `market_sector_id` (blockchains_l1), `business_segment_id` (blockchain), `chain_id` (aptos)
- **Final calculation**: The final metric value represents the average time in milliseconds between consecutive blocks for each day, processed through the finalize metric macro for standardization and chain availability filtering

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

avg(block_timestamp - previous_block_timestamp)

AptosAPT

Block time

Block time

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