Can retail investors expect to see a new landscape in the Aptos ecosystem?

Interviewee: Sherry Xiao, Founding Engineer of Aptos Labs

Interview and writing: Alex Liu, Foresight News

After the restructuring of the Aptos leadership team, the latest positioning of the "Global Trading Engine" has been launched. We invited Sherry Xiao, the founding engineer of Aptos Labs, to share the underlying technological innovations and strategic shifts, as well as the community users' most concerned issue of "wealth effect."

In the exclusive interview, Sherry elaborated on the ecological development strategy, emphasizing the importance of infrastructure optimization, developer support, and ecological incentives. She acknowledged past shortcomings in marketing and retail adoption and plans to attract more participants through technological innovation and community building. In the future, Aptos will focus on practical applications, driving blockchain technology to change lifestyles while breaking through the limitations of network effects through collaboration.

Vision and Implementation Direction

Foresight News: Can you briefly introduce Aptos's vision and the upcoming development direction? How will Aptos achieve this vision?

Sherry Xiao: Building the "Global Trading Engine" with Aptos.

We will approach this from several aspects. First, in terms of infrastructure, our throughput and latency have reached a high level, and the gas fee is very low. Even compared to L2, it is difficult to match our scalability and low-latency advantages. Many people believe L2 is to solve scalability issues, but they are not on the same level as Aptos.

Secondly, we plan to optimize transactions at the framework level, adjusting for specific use cases. For example, we will develop an order book at the on-chain framework level to support liquidity development while promoting account abstraction to provide better product design ideas and user experiences for ecological developers. Additionally, through cross-chain account functionality, we hope to attract cross-chain liquidity, such as allowing users with EVM or Solana addresses to trade directly on Aptos's DEX. We are also collaborating with Aave and Chainlink to bring liquidity from other chains into Aptos.

Finally, the foundation's funding will support existing ecological projects and incentivize the development of new projects, such as Hyperion and Merkle Trade, which are similar to Perp DEX. We have already laid out plans in different directions, and significant results will be seen in the coming months.

Foresight News: The construction of Aptos seems to lean more towards serving professional institutions or traders. While the user experience is good, the adoption rate among ordinary users and retail investors seems low. In contrast, Sui has more adoption among retail investors. Is your marketing more inclined towards institutions?

Sherry Xiao: Our team background is in high-performance infrastructure development, with core members coming from Facebook and WhatsApp, having served billions of users, so we have high standards for product and technical quality. However, due to our engineering background, we are relatively weak in marketing and user education. Institutions choose to collaborate with us because they see Aptos's performance advantages and stability during their technical selection process. We also have rich experience in compliance and regulation, making Aptos the preferred choice for many institutions.

Our collaboration with institutions is not a deliberate bias towards them; rather, they find Aptos's performance and tone very much aligned with their needs during their selection process. This year, we will focus deeply on the developer community and retail investors, enhancing user experience through protocol and product optimization, allowing more people to recognize Aptos's advantages. In terms of user experience, we have made many detailed optimizations, such as improvements to Aptos Keyless. We hope users can have a consistently good experience in any scenario, rather than simply chasing hype. Our focus is on creating practical and promising products.

Foresight News: Some believe Aptos is imitating Sui, such as changing from a chain structure to a directed acyclic graph and now developing an order book. What is your view on this issue?

Sherry Xiao: Our goal is not to replicate a specific product but to continuously enhance the performance and scale of on-chain transactions. We aim to improve the infrastructure while leaving the imaginative space at the application layer for developers, rather than developing a product and then leaving it unattended. Aptos's technical architecture is different from Sui, so the implementation methods also differ. We focus more on solving the most challenging technical problems, allowing developers to unleash their creativity and build high-performance, high-experience products.

On a technical level, Sui is not entirely original either; it has borrowed existing concepts. Technologies like Aptos's Block-STM have already been widely adopted, with projects like Monad, Initia, and Polygon using this technology. Our consensus protocol and research papers were published early on, placing us at the forefront of blockchain design.

While Sui launched quickly, Aptos's technical layout is earlier and more far-reaching. Ultimately, I believe the industry trend may lean towards adopting Aptos's technology.

Core Factors for TVL Growth

Foresight News: Regarding the growth of TVL (Total Value Locked), what do you think are the core factors behind Aptos's rapid growth?

Sherry Xiao: I believe Aptos has had a long-term layout in the trading field. Recently, our CEO Avery's vision and roadmap have become clearer, with three major stablecoins deployed on-chain, and many large institutions have minted assets on Aptos, driving rapid growth in total value. Most of the past growth has come from these aspects. At the same time, we are also promoting spot trading on DEX, the launch of the LFM plan, and the foundation's provision of $200 million in community ecological incentives and funding, all of which significantly promote the development of DeFi and the entire ecosystem. For example, we invested in the LST protocol Amnis and assisted in launching its first TGE. Coupled with the deployment of stablecoins, RWA (Real World Assets), and key elements across various tracks, this forms a multifaceted growth momentum.

Foresight News: Is the $200 million incentive a target for the next phase, or is it already underway? Is this equivalent to the incentive mechanism in DeFi?

Sherry Xiao: It is already underway. This is not just a simple incentive mechanism; our goal is to incubate quality projects and DeFi protocols. This funding includes grants, investments, and incentives.

We do not want the foundation to use the funds solely for short-term incentives, as these funds will eventually run out. In fact, this $200 million is a long-term development plan aimed at encouraging builders in the ecosystem and creating leading protocols.

Developer Level and Ecological Construction

Foresight News: Aptos has strong infrastructure, but the level of ecological builders seems to lag behind. How do you view this issue?

Sherry Xiao: We hope to solve the most challenging technical problems while providing the best developer experience and lowering the entry barrier. We invest a lot of effort in developer training and community building, collaborating with universities like Stanford and Berkeley to attract high-quality developers.

Order book is a great point; we see that many projects may want to do this, but it is not easy to accomplish, and their development cycles may be prolonged. The solutions produced by everyone may not necessarily meet the desired results. We plan to take the lead officially, collaborating with related projects like Econia and Kana Labs to participate in development together, avoiding resource dispersion. There will be an official liquidity order book to accommodate liquidity, with the differentiation of various teams at the product level, providing different user experiences, thus solving technical challenges while enhancing overall efficiency and creating optimal solutions.

Foresight News: Users are not the direct customers of the chain, but rather the developers. Is the reason they choose Aptos the security of the Move language? Is the growth of developers meeting expectations?

Sherry Xiao: Currently, the number of Web3 developers is far less than that of Web2, and we need to attract more high-quality developers. The security of the Move language is one of the important attractions; over the years, smart contract vulnerabilities have led to huge losses, and Move provides a more reliable solution. We are also developing toolchains and incentive measures to lower the entry difficulty and support developer growth.

In the past two years, the number of Move developers has increased by 37%, which is a good achievement. Although the number has not yet reached the ideal state, we believe that through technical narratives and practical products, we can attract more external developers to join.

Impact on Different User Groups

Foresight News: What impact does the new roadmap of Aptos have on different user groups (enterprises, developers, community users)?

Sherry Xiao: For enterprise users, our infrastructure will not change significantly, and performance and stability will continue to improve. For community users and developers, our vision and the $200 million support will bring more leading projects and incentives, attracting more people to participate in ecological construction. Ordinary users will see more engaging and participatory projects, while developers will receive more resources and support.

Community Feedback and LFM Plan Effectiveness

Foresight News: The community has mixed reviews about Aptos's first LFM project (Amnis), with more negative voices. How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the LFM plan?

Sherry Xiao: There will always be different voices in any community. Initially, Amnis's TGE project did receive negative feedback, such as issues with the fairness of airdrop distribution, which is a balance that the project team needs to address. However, shortly after, Amnis tokens performed excellently, ranking among the top on well-known exchanges, and the community's attitude has changed.

The vision of the LFM plan itself is long-term ecological construction, not just an immediate market reaction. We will continue to communicate closely with the community through various channels, gather feedback, and improve subsequent projects. Amnis is just the starting point, and I believe the next project will perform even better.

Foresight News: Will you guide projects to benefit retail investors more?

Sherry Xiao: We will try different methods to ensure fairness. This is a trial-and-error process, such as using tools to identify long-term active users and providing them with more benefits to avoid resources being overly concentrated among large holders.

Foresight News: There are many lending protocols in the ecosystem, but innovation is lacking. How do you avoid concentration and homogenization?

Sherry Xiao: We hope to promote collaboration among projects to facilitate the flow of funds rather than fighting alone. The foundation will support innovative projects, promote communication and collaboration, and avoid homogenization.

We encourage developers to create unique and outstanding applications. The LFM plan also has a "horse racing" aspect, where excellent applications will emerge.

Future Outlook and Aptos's Role

Foresight News: How do you view the future development of blockchain, and what role does Aptos play?

Sherry Xiao: Aptos is a pioneer in blockchain technology, and we hope to drive innovation and solve real-world problems, such as applications in social and e-commerce fields. Blockchain should change people's lifestyles, for example, by replacing traditional methods with efficient payment and settlement. We believe Aptos's technology and application scenarios have unlimited potential.

Technical advantages are fundamental, but we need to find suitable distribution channels and partners to promote user adoption. Marketing is as important as technology.

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