Welcome back to the Aptos’ Biweekly Overview. This week, we explore the launch of Confidential APT, Decibel’s new trading pairs and integration, and block time growth.
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By The Numbers
Daily transactions: 8.9M (-21.9%)
Network transactions per second: 682 tx/s (+182.2%)
Daily active users: 757.4K (-31.2%)
Total value locked: $272.8M (-6%)
Stablecoin market cap: $1.71B (+3%)
Weekly fees generated (APT burned): 45.4K APT (+35%)
The percentages and metrics are based on a 14-day timeframe, unless noted otherwise.
Inside The Blockchain
🌐 What happened: Aptos passed a governance vote to enable Confidential APT, an opt-in privacy feature that lets users hide their balances and transaction details, on mainnet.
🌐 Why it matters: Confidential APT lets users encrypt their onchain balances and transfer amounts while keeping sender and recipient wallet addresses publicly visible. Each transaction made using this feature is accompanied by a cryptographic proof that validators can use to confirm transactions without seeing the actual amounts.
On most blockchains, balances and transfers are fully visible, which raises the risk of targeted attacks, front-running trades, or profiling. While there are strong arguments to be made in favor of transparency on public blockchains, reducing such risks is important, too, as people and businesses increasingly start using blockchain-enabled assets like stablecoins, or purchase shares in crypto ETFs.
The feature is designed so that everyday payment apps and institutional settlement systems can run on the same chain, and take advantage of privacy features to make blockchain transactions safer, mirroring the confidentiality that traditional finance systems have.
🌐 The big picture: One of the most important purposes of blockchains is ensuring transparency in the movement of capital. But for institutional investors who often make very big trades, the risk of a big position being front-runned because someone could read their transaction details is too big, not to mention the security implications of exposing sensitive information in real time. Fully private systems also cannot provide the auditability institutions need to comply with regulations.
There’s also a privacy concern for consumers and enterprises using onchain rails to make payments if all their transaction details can be read publicly.
With Confidential APT, Aptos is trying to build in a privacy layer for its users who would like the option to keep transaction details private while still supporting the transparency of web3.
The Ecosystem Is Makin’ Moves
Over the past two weeks, Decibel: released perpetual futures trading for Silver (XAG); integrated with Tria to offer in-app trading support; and started an eight-week campaign to let users earn tokenized trading cards based on a point system.
As a result, the number of weekly transactions on Decibel reached an all-time high of 49.8M in the week of April 20
Ridwan Otun, VP of engineering and product at Juicyway, talked about how the cross-border currency exchange service uses stablecoin rails for treasury and settlement operations across Africa
Hyperion bought back 4,346 RION tokens ($900) in one week using protocol swap revenue
Herond Browser partnered with Hyperion and Goblin Finance to offer yield opportunities and trading within its privacy-focused browser
CedeFlow integrated with Decibel to let users set up automated AI bots for delta-neutral trading strategies
APTree hit $1M+ total volume on its token swap and yield app
Aptos Network Wins
Solomon Tesfaye, Chief Business Officer at Aptos Labs, spoke at Paris Blockchain Week about how counterparty risk and KYC/MML processes need to be improved before we see greater crypto adoption
Sherry Xiao, founding engineer at Aptos Labs, was talked in depth with CoinTelegraph about the privacy benefits of Confidential APT
Aptos block times hit a record low of 30.5ms on April 27
Aptos was included in OKX’s Agent Payments Protocol (APP)
Aptos Labs and Decibel Foundation signed a coalition letter supporting the SEC Staff's distinction between non-custodial interfaces and broker-dealer activity, and calling for formal rulemaking
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
Aptos Foundation and Aptos Labs will be attending Consensus Miami from May 5 to May 7
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.