Aptos vs Cardano

Aptos is a Layer‑1 written in Rust that uses the Move language and AptosBFT v4—a Diem‑derived HotStuff variant—to finalise blocks in less than 1 second. Its Block‑STM executor runs transactions in parallel and abort‑reexecutes on conflict, achieving > 100k TPS in public benchmarks. The 2024 ‘Quorum Store’ upgrade optimised mempool sharding and reduced latency under network partition.

Cardano uses the Ouroboros Proof‑of‑Stake protocol and an Extended‑UTxO ledger that enables deterministic smart contracts in Plutus and Aiken. Its ‘Basho’ scaling era introduced Hydra Head sidechains capable of 1000 TPS per head, and Mithril light‑client proofs for mobile wallets. Over 1 500 stake pools secure the network and participate in on‑chain treasury governance.