Fastest Chain, Forgotten Region—Aptos Leaves Asia Behind

- Aptos shifts validator nodes to EU/US to maintain 0.15s block time - South Korea's validator nodes drop from 13 to 5 in two years - Asian users face over 100ms of additional latency [Unblock Media] In pursuit of ultra-fast performance, Aptos has strategically concentrated validator nodes in Europe and North America, raising concerns that decentralization—particularly in the Asia-Pacific region—is being sacrificed for speed. In 2023, 13 out of 104 Aptos validator nodes were based in South Korea. As of 2025, that number has fallen to just five. The move reflects Aptos’s intention to reduce physical distances and network latency between validators in order to accelerate block generation and voting efficiency. Asia-Pacific was initially a target region for Aptos due to its high adoption rate and vibrant crypto activity, with countries like Korea, China, and Singapore leading innovation. Yet now, validator infrastructure is being withdrawn from the region. Solana exhibits a similar pattern, with most of its validator nodes located in the US and EU. As a result, Asian users may face more than 100 milliseconds of added transaction delay—a serious drawback in time-sensitive services like DeFi or GameFi. APAC is already losing ground in regulation, trading volume, and user adoption, and now faces growing infrastructural marginalization. If this imbalance continues, the region’s users will be subject to deepening economic and technical disadvantages. To uphold the values of decentralization and inclusivity that blockchain promises, a rebalancing of validator distribution and improved infrastructure access across regions is urgently needed.