What is the global trading engine? Can retail investors expect to see a new landscape in the Aptos ecosystem?
Interviewee: Sherry Xiao, Founder Engineer at Aptos Labs
Interview and article by: Alex Liu, Foresight News
After the reorganization 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 with us the technological innovations and strategic shifts behind it, as well as the “wealth effect” issue that community users are most concerned about.
Sherry elaborated on the ecological development strategy in an interview, emphasizing the importance of infrastructure optimization, developer support, and ecological incentives. She acknowledged the shortcomings in marketing and retail investor adoption in the past 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 collaborating to break through the limitations of network effects.
Vision and Implementation Direction
Foresight News: Can you briefly introduce Aptos’s vision and its future development direction? How will Aptos achieve this vision?
Sherry Xiao: Build a “Global Trading Engine” using 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 also very low. Even when compared to L2, our scalability and low latency advantages are hard to match. Many people believe that L2 is meant to solve scalability issues, but compared to Aptos, they are not on the same level.
Secondly, we plan to optimize transactions at the Framework level, making adjustments for specific use cases. For example, we will develop an order book at the on-chain Framework level to support liquidity development, while advancing account abstraction to provide better product design ideas and user experiences for ecosystem developers. In addition, 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 encourage the development of new projects, such as Hyperion and Merkle Trade, which is a type of Perp DEX. We have already made arrangements in different directions, and significant results will be seen in the coming months.
Foresight News: The construction of Aptos seems to be more oriented towards serving professional institutions or traders. Although the user experience is good, the adoption rate among ordinary users and retail investors appears to be low. In contrast, Sui has more adoption among retail investors. Is your marketing more inclined towards institutions?
Sherry Xiao: Our team’s 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 technology 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 technical selection. We also have rich experience in compliance and regulation, which makes Aptos the preferred choice for many institutions.
We collaborate with institutions not because we intentionally favor them, but because they find that Aptos’s performance and tone align very well with their needs during their selection process. This year, we will focus deeply on the developer community and retail investors, enhancing user experience by optimizing protocols and products, so that more people can recognize the advantages of Aptos. In terms of user experience, we have made many detailed optimizations, such as improvements to Aptos Keyless. We hope that users can achieve a consistently good experience in any scenario, rather than simply chasing gimmicks. Our focus is on creating practical and promising products.
Foresight News: Some people believe that Aptos is imitating Sui, for example, changing from a chain structure to a directed acyclic graph, and now developing an OrderBook. What do you think about this issue?
Sherry Xiao: Our goal is not to replicate a certain product, but to continuously enhance the performance and scalability of on-chain transactions. We hope to improve the infrastructure and leave the imaginative space at the application layer to developers, rather than developing a product ourselves and then leaving it unattended. The technical architecture of Aptos is different from that of 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, but rather draws on existing concepts. Technologies like Aptos’s Block-STM have already been widely adopted; for example, projects such as Monad, Initia, and Polygon are using this technology. Our consensus protocol and research papers were released early on, placing us in a leading position in blockchain design.
Although Sui has a fast launch speed, Aptos’s technological layout is earlier and more profound. Ultimately, I believe the industry trend may lean towards adopting Aptos’s technology.
Core Factors of 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 think Aptos has always had a long-term presence in the trading space. Recently, our CEO Avery’s vision and roadmap has gradually become clear, the three major stablecoins have been deployed on the chain, and many large institutions have also minted assets on Aptos, which has driven the rapid growth of total value. Much of the growth in the past has come from these areas. At the same time, we are also promoting spot trading on DEXs, the launch of the LFM program, and the $200 million community ecosystem incentives and grants provided by the Foundation, all of which have significantly contributed to the development of DeFi and the ecosystem as a whole. For example, we invested in the LST protocol Amnis and helped launch its first TGE. Coupled with the deployment of stablecoins, RWA (real world assets), and key elements of each track, they together constitute a multifaceted growth driver.
Foresight News: Is the $200 million incentive a goal for the next phase or is it already underway? Is this equivalent to the incentive mechanism of DeFi?
Sherry Xiao: In progress. This is not just a simple incentive mechanism; our goal is to incubate high-quality projects and DeFi protocols. This funding consists of three parts: grants, investments, and incentives.
We do not wish for 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 the builders of the ecosystem and creating leading protocols.
Developer Level and Ecosystem Construction
Foresight News: The infrastructure of Aptos is strong, but the level of ecosystem builders seems to lag behind. What are your thoughts on this issue?
Sherry Xiao: We hope to solve the most difficult 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.
Orderbook is a great point, and we see that many projects may want to do this, but it is not easy to accomplish. Their development cycles will be prolonged, and the solutions produced by everyone may not necessarily meet the desired results. We plan to take the lead officially and collaborate with related projects like Econia and Kana Labs to participate in the development, avoiding resource dispersion. There will be an official liquidity order book to accommodate liquidity, with the differentiation of various teams at the product level, different user experiences, etc. This will not only solve technical challenges but also enhance overall efficiency, creating the optimal solution.
Foresight News: Users are not direct clients of the chain, but rather developers. Is their choice of Aptos due to the security of the Move language? Does the growth in the number of developers meet expectations?
Sherry Xiao: Currently, the number of Web3 developers is far fewer 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 barrier and support developer growth.
In the past two years, the number of Move developers has grown by 37%, which is a good achievement. Although the number has not yet reached the ideal state, we believe that through technical storytelling and practical products, we can attract more external developers to join.
Impact on Different User Groups
Foresight News: What impact does Aptos’ new roadmap have on different user groups (enterprises, developers, community users)?
Sherry Xiao: For enterprise users, our infrastructure will not see significant changes, 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 ecosystem building. Retail investors will see more engaging and highly participatory projects, while developers will gain more resources and support.
Community Feedback and LFM Program Effectiveness
Foresight News: The community has mixed reviews on Aptos’ first LFM project (Amnis), with more negative opinions. How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the LFM plan?
Sherry Xiao: There will always be different voices in any community. Initially, the TGE project of Amnis did receive negative feedback, such as the fairness of airdrop distribution, which is a balance that the project team needs to address. However, soon after, the performance of the Amnis token was outstanding, ranking among the top in well-known exchanges, and the community’s attitude also changed.
The vision of the LFM program itself is a long-term ecological construction, not just an immediate reaction of the market. We will continue to communicate closely with the community through different channels to learn from the feedback and improve the follow-up projects, Amnis is just the starting point, and I am confident that the next project will do even better.
Foresight News: Will it guide projects to benefit retail investors more?
Sherry Xiao: We will try different methods to ensure fairness. This is an iterative process, such as identifying long-term active users through tools to provide more benefits and avoid excessive resource concentration on retail investors.
Foresight News: There are many lending protocols in the ecosystem, but innovation is lacking. How can we avoid centralization and homogenization?
Sherry Xiao: We hope to promote cooperation between projects, allowing funds to flow rather than fighting alone. The foundation will support innovative projects, facilitate communication and collaboration, and avoid homogenization.
We encourage developers to create unique and outstanding applications, and the LFM program also has the meaning of “horse racing,” where excellent applications will emerge.
Future Outlook and the Role of Aptos
Foresight News: What are your views on 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 payments and settlements. We believe that Aptos’s technology and application scenarios have limitless potential.
Technical advantages are fundamental, but we need to find suitable distribution channels and partners to drive user adoption. Marketing is just as important as technology.
