Aptos Co-founder Sherry: The Technical Journey of Building a Global Trading Engine

As an emerging public chain, Aptos is gradually achieving its strategic positioning as a "global trading engine" through technological innovation and ecological expansion. Since it first broke through a total locked value (TVL) of $1 billion last November, Aptos reached $1.03 billion by the end of March. At the same time, its stablecoin market cap also surpassed $1 billion for the first time on March 24, with a year-on-year growth of over ten times, demonstrating strong ecological attractiveness and capital carrying capacity.

On a technical level, Aptos continues to advance solutions such as Zaptos and Shardines to build an underlying architecture that supports millions of TPS, enhancing its advantages in performance, stability, and user experience. In terms of ecosystem development, Aave has completed the deployment of its first non-EVM testnet, significantly increasing DeFi activity.

Recently, we had an in-depth conversation with Sherry Xiao, an early founding engineer of Aptos, discussing key topics such as the technical architecture of the global trading engine, ecological expansion strategies, and developer support. We gained a deeper understanding of how Aptos stands out in the new round of public chain competition by being technology-driven and ecosystem-supported.

Technical Foundation of High-Performance Public Chains

Before joining Aptos, Sherry Xiao worked on scalability architecture at Instagram, then joined the Libra/Diem team at Meta (formerly Facebook), responsible for validator nodes and infrastructure development. When the Libra project faced regulatory hurdles, the entire team founded Aptos together in 2022.

Speaking about the advantages of the Move language, Sherry pointed out that Move has been optimized for smart contracts from the very beginning, providing multiple guarantees in asset management and security, and is equipped with formal verification tools. Compared to Solidity and EVM, Move can effectively avoid common security vulnerabilities and reduce the risk of fund loss. In addition, Move also offers innovative features such as dynamic distribution, account abstraction, and permissioned signatures, enabling developers to build more advanced products.

On the current technological infrastructure, Sherry believes there is still significant room for improvement in the developer experience and user experience of Web3. Aptos is deeply focusing on ZK-based login solutions and innovations in privacy protection. Recently, they launched a project in their open-source code repository that can hide transaction details, combining privacy protection with the decentralized features of blockchain.

When discussing Aptos's unique advantages in scalability, Sherry emphasized the team's rich experience in building highly scalable systems. Aptos's design is highly modular, with each module having independent scalability:

• Consensus Layer: The newly released Raptr is the industry's most advanced implementation of consensus algorithms, taking parallelization to the extreme;
• Execution level: Block-STM technology is at the forefront of the industry, adopted by several newly launched public chains and L2s;
• Storage: Sharding technology has been implemented, and further research on sharding technology and related caching layers will continue in the future to further enhance system performance.

Ecological Layout: Stablecoins, Trading, and DeFi

Aptos on-chain data has shown impressive performance, with the number of accounts exceeding 47 million and weekly transaction volume surpassing 39 million. Sherry explained that this progress mainly comes from several aspects:

1. Infrastructure construction: Native support for the three major stablecoins USDT, USDC, and USDE, on-chain peer-to-peer payments have become a significant advantage.
2. Collaborate with institutions: such as Franklin Templeton, to launch multiple RWA projects on-chain.
3. Ecosystem Fund: Announced a $2 million ecosystem fund at the beginning of the year to incentivize community building and support various DeFi protocols and projects.
4. LFM Plan: Assist ecological projects in planning roadmaps, conducting token generation events, connecting with exchange resources, obtaining venture capital, and providing marketing and KOL guidance.

Regarding the issuance of the Hong Kong stablecoin HKDA, Sherry stated that Aptos is the only participating L1 blockchain platform in the Hong Kong e-HKD project, maintaining close communication with Hong Kong's banks and government departments. In terms of its layout in Hong Kong, Aptos has established a co-creation space called Aptos Space in a prime location through the official community organization Movemaker, providing a venue for builders to collaborate and gather.

In terms of ecological support, Sherry stated that Aptos focuses on transaction-related sectors, including payment, the expansion of stablecoin application scenarios, and the DeFi sector. They hope to collaborate deeply with large institutions and partners with distribution channels, while also paying attention to the combination of gaming and DeFi, as well as the application scenarios of AI agents and trading.

Speaking about the vision for the global trading engine, Sherry introduced several key technologies:

• Keyless: A zk-based technology that allows users to log in directly using mainstream social accounts.
• Account abstraction and permissioned signatures: allowing DeFi developers to have better control over user authentication and entry processes.
• Move language upgrade: Added features such as dynamic scripts and dynamic distribution to support functional innovation in DeFi or trading applications.

Talent Development: Developer Ecosystem Construction and University Cooperation

In the face of AI becoming a popular direction, Sherry believes that there are still many developers interested in cryptography, decentralization, and blockchain, features that AI cannot fulfill. As long as developers can see market prospects, demands, and opportunities, they can be attracted to continue their efforts in the blockchain field.

In terms of talent cultivation in higher education, Aptos has in-depth cooperation with the Blockchain Associations of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. They also have collaborative projects with SMU in Singapore and Tsinghua University in China. They work with professors to design blockchain courses, allowing students to directly learn Aptos technology. Most of the company's engineers hold PhDs and frequently give presentations at renowned universities to attract outstanding developers to join the community.

Looking ahead to the future development of Web3, Sherry stated that the team remains focused on the fields of trading and payments. They hope to establish a global financial infrastructure that allows more people to enjoy the conveniences of the modern financial system. Sherry is particularly looking forward to seeing innovative payment projects combined with stablecoins, such as implementing payroll flow payments on Aptos.

Finally, regarding the recent changes in the upper management of the team, Sherry believes this is an opportunity to reassess past plans and make adjustments, allowing the team to unite and contemplate the direction of future layouts.