Welcome back to the Aptos’ Biweekly Overview. In this edition, we cover Aptos Foundation and Aptos Labs’ $50M commitment to advance its in-house stack, plus its new partnerships tied to its institutional and tokenized RWA offerings.
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By The Numbers
Daily transactions: 11.1M (+24.7%)
Network transactions per second: 699 tx/s (+2.5%)
Daily active users: 427.7K (-43.5%)
Total value locked: $264.6M (-3%)
Stablecoin market cap: $1.66B (-2.9%)
Weekly fees generated (APT burned): 45.8K APT (+0.9%)
The percentages and metrics are based on a 14-day timeframe, unless noted otherwise.
Inside The Blockchain
🌐 What happened: Aptos Foundation and Aptos Labs have committed to invest $50 million across the Aptos stack to fund products, research, protocol infrastructure, and a fund for trading and AI partners.
🌐 Why it matters: The capital is targeted at developing systems to support institutional-grade trading, and autonomous AI systems that transact onchain, and will be split across four areas.
First, Aptos will focus on existing products like Decibel, which is a perpetual futures and spot decentralized exchange, and Shelby, a hot storage protocol built for AI agents that use frequent data reads.
Second, Aptos will fund protocol-level work like encrypted mempools, the Financial Information eXchange that lets exchanges communicate with one another, and CryptoCurrency eXchange Trading to let developers fetch market data and execute trades across multiple platforms using a single interface.
The third area is research, specifically on zero-knowledge circuit compilers that underpin features like Aptos Keyless. Finally, Aptos will set up a fund to support external trading firms and AI teams that build on Aptos.
The funding will help Aptos develop infrastructure that will support institutional flows and agentic AI. Institutional desks need order book depth, MEV protection, and connectivity to existing systems before they can route large volumes onchain. Meanwhile, any network that seeks to cater to AI agents must offer sub-second finality, low fees, and data structures built for their access patterns.
🌐 The big picture: This isn't Aptos's first commitment of this kind.
In February 2025, the Aptos Foundation set aside $200 million in grants and investments to expand DeFi on the network, focused on spot trading hubs and liquidity market makers.
While the exact outcomes from that commitment are hard to measure since ecosystem and network activity have many variables, Aptos’ TVL did rise from $916 million in February 2025, to $1.06 billion by the end of March. In addition, on the project side, the network grew from about 250 projects at the start of 2025 to over 330 by mid-2025, with the Aptos Foundation distributing more than 200 grants across DeFi, NFTs, infrastructure, and tooling during that period.
Meanwhile, Movemaker, the Aptos Foundation’s community organization for advancing Aptos in Chinese-speaking regions, committed $2 million and $200,000 on separate occasions for onboarding new developers.
This $50 million commitment is structurally different from prior investments, however, because it is tied to specific protocol-level deliverables and aims to further develop in-house products.
The Ecosystem Is Makin’ Moves
Ekiden, a decentralized exchange built on Aptos, closed a $2M seed round on May 5, with participation from angel investors tied to GSR, Aptos Foundation and LayerZero
Hyperion partnered with SantaBrowser to allow users to trade perpetual future contracts directly from the web browser’s interface
Decibel enabled leverage trading for Crude Oil (WTIOIL)
Cactus Custody has added support for Aptos’ Decibel to provide custody options that let institutions participate in Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) trading without having to move assets
Cede Flow started a week-long trading competition on Decibel that features tier-based prize pools
Thala’s tokenswap platform crossed $2.5B in cumulative volume
Aptos Network Wins
Aptos Foundation announced a number of ongoing initiatives:
Xangecom will launch the Immutable Metadata Digital Certificate, a carbon credit data token that tracks environmental projects
tZERO Group said it would integrate its tokenization RWA platform with Aptos, letting issuers launch tokens tied to private company cap tables
BDACS is launching KRW1, a stablecoin pegged to the Korean won
Aptos entered a memorandum of understanding with NETSTARS to explore applications for using its payment solutions within Aptos’ blockchain infrastructure, ecosystem, and related markets
Aptos median block times hit an all-time low of 28ms on May 12
Aptos has an ongoing governance vote for establishing encrypted mempool, a technological feature that makes transactions details hidden until execution
Move Prover updated its system to support AI coding agents so developers can interpret each call function without committing to a particular one
Join In The Fun
Want to dive into the ecosystem full-time?
Find the latest job postings on Aptos
Echelon is allocating $30K worth of ELON tokens for USD1 suppliers
Sign up for PACT’s Fintech Ecosystem Expansion program if you’re building onchain banking services
That’s all for now.
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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.