Aptos, as a new darling of capital, attracts attention with every move. Chain Tea House has scanned Aptos' ecological projects, taking into account Aptos' technical features and team background, and summarized them into this article.
- Technical Features
Aptos recently released a whitepaper. The content of the whitepaper is very technically oriented and difficult to read, but the official Twitter account has summarized several core technical advantages [1].
First is security. Since Aptos is based on the Move language, which is resource-oriented, assets are stored in the owner's address rather than the contract address. Therefore, the execution results of each transaction are completely predictable, providing users with better transaction protection. However, there seems to be some disagreement among the developers I have contacted about this point: the business logic that Move can achieve can also be achieved through Solidity, so it is difficult to guarantee security solely through a programming language.
Secondly, modular division of labor improves efficiency for nodes. Different nodes execute different modules separately and synchronously, rather than being executed in sequence by the same node, to improve speed through a pipeline approach. This is not a new concept, but a trend in the development of public chains in recent years. Flow's nodes have adopted modular division of labor, and Celestia even treats modularity as a public service. The core still depends on the real speed test after going live.
Source: https://twitter.com/AptosLabs/status/1557786637483982848
Third, parallel processing of transactions is achieved using Block-STM. The core technology of STM (Software Transactional Memory) includes optimistic concurrency control, which assumes that the transaction is valid and executes it before verification. STM is also inherited from Diem's design, and the official blog claims that this is the key to achieving a TPS of 160k [2].
Furthermore, node workload is reduced through special state synchronization (State Sync) [3]. Full nodes can read the Merkle root of consensus reached by other nodes to achieve state synchronization, skipping history and directly processing the latest blocks. Light nodes can choose to synchronize partial block information, such as specific account information.
Finally, Aptos supports contract upgradability, allowing developers to update functionality without deploying a new version of the contract.
From these summaries, Aptos' main advantages are "fast and secure," but it is not clear whether it sacrifices decentralization. Based on past experience with public chains, each public chain has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of technology. It is unlikely that there will be a public chain that surpasses others in all aspects technologically. The core of public chain development still depends on the ecosystem.
- Ecosystem Operation
The most eye-catching aspect of Aptos is its ecosystem, as shown in the figure below, which lists nearly a hundred ecological projects.
Among them, DeFi has the most projects, covering various categories such as DEX, lending, derivatives, aggregators, etc. In terms of infrastructure, the wallet track is the most crowded, with 10 projects already emerging. Most other categories also have project coverage, including domains, DAO payments, etc. In the NFT/game field, there are already at least 2 publicly testable marketplaces and multiple NFT/game projects.
Here is a brief description of some of the noteworthy projects, but there are many more. Feel free to add.
DEX
Econia is a "super parallel order book" DEX. As an order book DEX, similar to platforms like Serum, it requires matching of bid/ask orders. However, there are two points worth noting.
First, in order book DEX, buyers and sellers' orders usually need to exist before matching, meaning buyers and sellers need to interact separately to "place" orders.
Source: https://twitter.com/fabiusmercurius/status/1452349295038926848
Econia, on the other hand, uses optimistic control provided by Aptos, which assumes the transaction is valid and verifies it after the transaction is completed. Therefore, when one party places an order, the system automatically matches and completes the transaction, reducing the need for interaction and improving efficiency.
Source: https://medium.com/econialabs/introducing-econias-atomic-matching-engine-a337924b560f
Secondly, Econia divides the entire market into multiple parallel and non-overlapping markets, where orders can be matched synchronously within each market, providing a second way to improve efficiency.
Source: https://medium.com/econialabs/introducing-econias-atomic-matching-engine-a337924b560f
Econia also indicates a new trend: the emergence of more and more order book DEXs on new public chains. From Serum on Solana to ZigZag on ZKSync, and now Econia on Aptos, they are all exploring order book DEXs on new public chains that focus on high-frequency, low-cost trading. Compared to the AMM model, the order book model requires professional market makers and is not friendly to long-tail assets. However, it still attracts some users with its advantages of limit orders and low slippage.
Econia has released a version on the testnet, and developers can interact with it through APIs.
In addition to Econia, there are other well-known teams building DEXs on Aptos, such as Pontem and Saber.
Pontem has been in the industry since 2014 and has developed products such as Crytpi and Dfinance. They are currently developing the Pontem wallet and an AMM-based DEX called "liquidswap" on Aptos, both of which are open for testing by ordinary users. Saber is a leading stablecoin AMM on Solana and is currently migrating to Aptos.
Derivatives
There are also many decentralized derivatives platforms, including Tsunami Finance, Aries Markets, 1kxprotocol, and more.
Tsunami Finance focuses on zero slippage and leverage of up to 30x. Aries Markets also operates on an order book model. 1kxprotocol was originally on ZKSync and will also be built on Aptos.
In addition, there are collateral lending platforms like vial protocol, similar to AAVE, which are already available. There is also Zaptos Finance, similar to Lido, which offers liquid staking.
NFT Marketplaces
Souffl3 and Topaz have both provided testnet-ready NFT marketplaces. Souffl3 also has a version on Solana and is one of the migration pioneers. Currently, completing tasks on Souffl3 and Topaz can earn users a Genesis NFT whitelist and badge. The most traded items on both platforms are NFTs from the Souffl3 testnet and Aptos Names domains.
- Team and Capital
Aptos has raised a total of $350 million in funding. In March of this year, they announced a $200 million financing round led by a16z, and in July, they announced another $150 million financing round led by FTX and Jump Crypto. Aptos is undoubtedly the latest darling of capital, even in a bear market.
Co-founder and CEO Mohammad Shaikh has a background in consulting and investment, having worked as an analyst at KPMG, RBC, BlackRock, and BCG. He entered the industry in 2017, serving as the Director of Strategy at Consensys and also starting his own venture, Meridio, which aims to securitize real estate. In May 2020, he joined Meta as Head of Strategic Partnerships and founded Aptos in 2021. The CEO is an experienced activist, serving as a director for multiple companies during his time at Meta, so it is no wonder that Aptos is vigorously developing its ecosystem.
Co-founder and CTO Avery Ching graduated with a bachelor's and doctoral degree in computer science from Northwestern University. After graduation, he worked as a software engineer at Yahoo for 4 years, and then spent 10 years at Meta, where he served as the Chief Software Engineer for Novi from 2018 to 2021. Novi is Meta's revived cryptocurrency wallet project, inheriting the legacy of Diem and Libra, and replacing both brands.
It is worth noting that Evan Cheng, who served as the Director of Project Development for Libra/Diem/Novi at Meta during the same period, is now the co-founder and CEO of Sui, a competitor to Aptos. Aptos focuses on the ecosystem, while Sui focuses on technology (Sui has made more changes to the Move language), making the difference clear.
Although Aptos' whitepaper is very technically oriented, the overall narrative logic is capital-oriented. Compared to the ecosystem of EVM-compatible chains, the current ecosystem projects on Aptos do not offer much novelty. The future core will depend on whether it can attract TVL with the power of capital and whether it can generate large-scale applications in new categories.
[4]https://medium.com/econialabs/introducing-econias-atomic-matching-engine-a337924b560f