Aptos' Avery Ching: Paving the Way for Traditional Finance Adoption

Aptos, co-founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, made significant strides in 2024. As a descendant of Facebook's discontinued Libra project, later known as Diem, Aptos successfully integrated with major traditional finance players like Stripe, Franklin Templeton, and BlackRock. Additionally, Aptos introduced an updated version of its smart contract programming language, Move, which has seen applications beyond the project's ecosystem, including the creation of Movement, a layer-2 network on Ethereum. Heading into 2025, the growing demand for faster-executing blockchains, as seen in the enthusiasm for Solana over Ethereum, may bode well for Aptos, a project designed with scalability in mind and backed by venture capital funding. CoinDesk recently spoke with Ching, Aptos' CTO and one of the most influential figures of 2024, about the adoption of DeFi by mainstream finance, his expectations for the upcoming year, and more. Reflecting on 2024, Ching highlighted Aptos' first developer conference, Aptos Experience, in Seoul as a personal standout, citing the energy and validation that came from meeting and working alongside hundreds of innovative developers. The conference marked a significant milestone in Aptos' journey towards improving the developer experience, innovating user experience, and enhancing system scalability. Key achievements included the release of Move 2, driving the consensus protocol to near-optimal latency, scaling the network, and setting a daily transaction record of 326 million. Aptos also launched Aptos Build, a comprehensive suite of developer tools, and made considerable progress in enhancing the user experience with AptosConnect and Aptos Keyless. Furthermore, Aptos has been pushing industry-wide benchmarks, notably achieving sub-second latency, which signifies near-instant transactions. When asked about the biggest challenges faced in building Aptos, Ching emphasized the importance of time, technology, and infrastructure. The focus has been on building, integrating, upgrading, and bridging to make Aptos a hub for high-performance DeFi and to boost interoperability with EVM ecosystems, all powered by Move on Aptos. Aptos has secured several high-profile partnerships with traditional finance institutions, prompting the question of how far along the industry is in terms of mainstream financial adoption of DeFi. Ching likened the current state of blockchain to the internet in the late 1990s, emphasizing that the industry is still in its early stages. Despite this, significant progress was made in 2024, both in terms of technology, with products like Aptos Ascend, and through new integrations with major players like Stripe, Circle, and Tether, as well as the deployment of tokenized assets on Aptos by institutions such as Franklin Templeton, Blackrock, and Libre. Looking ahead to 2025, Ching discussed the potential impact of the new US administration and changes at institutions like the SEC on the adoption of DeFi by mainstream finance. He found encouragement in the bipartisan effort by Congress to advance the regulatory framework in the US and noted the importance of groups like the Blockchain Association in facilitating dialogue between government and industry leaders. A regulatory framework that supports Web3 innovation would be a positive signal for the industry. For 2025, Ching foresaw significant trends, including increased interest in web3 among developers. At Aptos Labs, the focus has been on building for the future scale of the 5 billion internet users, with particular excitement around the intersection of finance, loyalty, commerce, and ad tech, and collaborations with partners like K-gen and STAN. A notable example is the partnership with NBCUniversal, announced earlier in 2024, aimed at reimagining fan engagement through on-chain experiences. This strategic collaboration seeks to create deeper connections between entertainment brands and their audiences by integrating customer loyalty programs and interactive gaming experiences on the Aptos network, demonstrating how blockchain can transform traditional engagement models.