Aptos and Canto are among the best performing Layer1s in terms of token prices in 2023. In the first 30 days of the year, both $APT and $CANTO increased over 400% in value. During the last two days, however, $APT started to drop a bit, whereas $CANTO kept going up.

Last October, TokenInsight published an in-depth guide to the emerging Alt-Layer1s, which you can read here. Aptos and Canto are the only two Layer1s featured in the guide that have launched tokens. The two have very different designs, and different factors that drove their token prices up.

$APT's surge was partly related to the massive trading volume in the Korean market. On the Korean exchange Upbit, the APT/KRW trading pair has attracted a large number of trading activities, as $APT is sold for a higher price than it is on other exchanges ($16.66 vs $16.40 as of now). However, the trading volume has decreased in the last two days, which is probably the reason $APT dropped. The 24 hour trading volume of APT/KRW on Upbit is $282m, while on January 27th it was $566m.

On January 30th, $APT reached the $20 mark, hitting its ATH, but quickly fell below $18. Aptos' first hackathon, Aptos World Tour, starts today at the first stop in Seoul, but it hasn't driven the price up again.

For $CANTO, the price jump may be because the chain is being used more frequently, as it coincides with the rise of Canto's TVL and on-chain trading volume. According to DefiLlama, Canto has the 18th highest TVL among all chains now, overshadowing some more famous chains includin Celo, Near, Moonbeam, and Aptos (ranking 31st). In the Cosmos ecosystem, it has the 4th highest TVL. In 2023, Canto's TVL more than doubled, increasing from $66.9m to $153.8m.

In terms of 24 hour trading volume, Canto has been keeping its position in the top 10 among all chains recently. On January 25th, the Canto DEX set its own new record with $75m in daily trading volume.

As an appchain designed for DeFi, Canto saw the number of transactions increasing each week. The