APT Financials
From the perspective of the token holders, REV is the "top line" metric of a blockchain as it represents the amount of value that users pay for transaction execution and the value that token holders are ultimately eligible to earn, net of any operating expenses.
Real Economic Value (REV)
Network REV is a standardized metric that tracks blockchain value capture generated by real income. REV consists of both in-protocol transaction fees and out-of-protocol tips that users pay for transaction execution. Therefore, it is an aggregate measure of user transaction demand. Network REV does not include any Token Issuance.
Aptos does not currently have any out-of-protocol tipping mechanism, so all REV is generated by in-protocol transaction fees.
Aptos transaction fees consist of Execution Fees and IO Fees, which cover the cost of processing the transaction and propagating the validated record throughout the network.
While storage fees can be associated with transaction fees, they are excluded from REV since they are refundable deposits, not permanent fees paid by the user. Storage fees are an important piece of Aptos economics, but are tracked separately from REV.
Operator Payments
Payments to operators refer to the value allocated to the infrastructure providers responsible for running the network, such as miners or validators. These payments generally cover the real-world costs of maintaining the network plus some margin to incentivize participation. These are independent operators with unique setups, so operator payments are not uniform across the operator set. Therefore, Operator Payments are the amount of value that does not flow to token holders.
In this model, inflation is not a cost in its entirety -- only the portion that does not flow to token holders is a cost. The portion that does flow to token holders is simply a value transfer from non-stakers to stakers. So from the perspective of the aggregate token holders (stakers and non-stakers), only the value distributed to Operators is a cost to the token holders.
Aptos validator operators are compensated by taking a commission on new token issuance. The commission rate is configurable by the operator and assessed on issuance rewards. Since all gas fees are burned on Aptos, validators do not receive a portion of REV.
Importantly, we consider large stakers that run their own validators as self-staked operators that have no cost to the network. We consider any validator with >90% commission to be a self-staked operator. Any commission that flows to self-staked operators is not counted in operator payments.
Token Holder Net Income
Token Holder Net Income = REV - Operator Payments. It measures the value that accrues to the token holders after considering payments to operators.
Importantly, the Token Holders are the aggregate position of both stakers and non-stakers, and these positions have noticeably different return profiles. Stakers receive both token burn and staking payments, while non-stakers only receive token burn. Furthermore, the exact method a staker uses to stake will impact their return profile (e.g. native vs liquid staked).