[ARFC] Aave V3 Deployment on Aptos Mainnet

Title: [ARFC] Aave V3 Deployment on Aptos Mainnet

Author: @AptosFoundation

Date: 2025-04-16

Summary

This proposal aims to deploy Aave V3 on the Aptos Mainnet, expanding beyond Ethereum to tap into a next-generation blockchain that offers high throughput, ultra-low transaction fees, and enhanced security. By leveraging Aptos’s innovative features—especially its use of the Move programming language—this move seeks to make the protocol more efficient, accessible, and resilient, positioning Aave to serve a broader audience and adapt to the evolving DeFi landscape.

If approved by the Aave community, Aave V3 will launch on Aptos Mainnet with a carefully chosen selection of assets, guided by community input and curated by Chaos Labs and Llama Risk.

This initiative aims to extend Aave into the thriving Aptos ecosystem—unlocking innovative growth opportunities and enhancing the value for both communities.

Background

The Aave Protocol has been EVM-native for over 6 years, ensuring widespread cross compatibility, a robust developer ecosystem, and significant network effects over the years both in terms of user base and liquidity. However, it also brings limitations, especially considering the existence of many non-EVM blockchains that offer different advantages such as lower transaction fees, higher throughput, and more advanced consensus mechanisms. In addition to purely technical advantages, many non-EVM blockchains can allow the Aave community to expand to an entirely new ecosystem, previously inaccessible user groups, and introduce new product possibilities.

Aptos is a blockchain designed for building scalable and secure dApps. Developed by former leaders of Meta’s Diem blockchain project, it aims to address some of the limitations in existing blockchain systems such as throughput, scalability, and security. With a TVL of approximately $958.64M and growing rapidly, Aptos is the 11th largest chain by TVL (source:DeFiLlama). Its robust infrastructure offers high transaction throughput, low, predictable fees, and advanced security through the Move programming language that make Aptos an ideal platform for DeFi applications.

Motivation

Deploying Aave V3 on Aptos represents a groundbreaking expansion as it marks Aave’s first deployment on a non-EVM blockchain. This strategic move is significant as it opens up new technological frontiers, diversifies Aave’s ecosystem, and underscores its commitment to innovation.

By leveraging Aptos’ innovative technology and developer community, Aave can address diverse financial needs, attract new users, and drive greater innovation in the DeFi sector. This deployment aligns with the Aave community’s strategic goal to explore new technological possibilities and tap into a wider pool of talent and resources.

Key benefits of deploying Aave V3 on Aptos include:

1. First Non-EVM Deployment:

  • This deployment is a significant milestone as Aave’s first move beyond EVM-compatible blockchains. It positions Aave to explore and integrate with new blockchain ecosystems, enhancing its resilience and broadening its reach.

2. Early Mover Advantage and Strong Brand:

  • Aave is a leading brand in the DeFi space, with a strong reputation and market share. By deploying on Aptos, Aave captures early mover advantages on a high-performance blockchain, similar to its strategic expansions to Avalanche and other L2s. This can attract both seasoned DeFi users and new participants exploring Aptos.

3. Aptos’ Strategic Position:

  • The Aptos team, with their background from Meta’s Diem project, has strong connections and expertise in finance, social and gaming sectors. Integrating Aave into Aptos complements these areas by adding a mature financial layer, essential for a complete blockchain ecosystem.

4. High Transaction Throughput:

  • Aptos supports up to 30,000 transactions per second (TPS), crucial for DeFi protocols like Aave that handle a high volume of transactions, including loans, repayments, and interest accruals. This high throughput can significantly enhance user experience and enable new use cases that require high-frequency transactions.

5. Enhanced Security with Move Language:

  • Aave v3 introduces sophisticated risk management tools and improved security protocols. The Move programming language used by Aptos has inherent security advantages, such as preventing reentrancy attacks. This alignment can lead to a more secure DeFi lending environment, leveraging Move’s safety features and formal verification.

6. Transaction Cost Efficiency:

  • Aave v3 focuses on gas efficiency, critical for reducing transaction costs. Aptos’ efficient processing capabilities further complement this by potentially lowering transaction fees even more. This makes Aave more accessible and attractive to a broader range of users, from retail participants to institutional players.

7. Modular and Flexible Architecture:

  • Aave v3’s modular and flexible architecture facilitates easier upgrades and expansions. Aptos supports upgradable smart contracts and a flexible account model, enhancing this aspect. This allows for seamless implementation of updates and improvements without significant disruptions or migrations.

8. Economic Benefits for the Aave DAO:

  • Market Share Growth: Access to new markets and user bases, specifically in APAC and Korea where Aptos has a strong presence.

  • Revenue Growth: New markets and user bases can significantly increase transaction volumes and generate additional revenue streams.

  • Incentives: Aptos Foundation has committed to provide up to 2M APT in liquidity mining incentives and rewards depending on performance in order to attract users and liquidity providers, increase adoption and boost the ecosystem’s growth. Aptos Foundation will work closely with Chaos Labs on determining the appropriate level of incentives relative to caps set.

By deploying Aave V3 on Aptos, we will have the first non-EVM deployment through which we can reach new user bases and tap into an ecosystem primed for high-demand DeFi applications, ensuring our protocol remains at the forefront of innovation.

Specification

Risk Parameters

Pending Risk Provider recommendations.

Technical Adaptation of Aave V3 to Aptos

Since our last update—and following the successful TEMP CHECK snapshot vote—we have made significant progress in tailoring Aave V3 for Aptos. We have been actively engaging with the community through regular development updates and rigorous testing on the Aptos testnet while involving security auditors at every step. Our extensive efforts have ensured that Aptos is now fully prepared to host Aave’s next-generation protocol.

Key areas of effort included:

1. Deep Protocol Understanding:

  • Comprehensive study of the intricate financial models and smart contract design of Aave V3, ensuring that the full complexity of the protocol is faithfully reimagined on Aptos.

2. Mastering Move and the Aptos Ecosystem:

  • Immersion into the Move language, its ecosystem, and best coding practices. This included analyzing standard native libraries, thoroughly understanding the Aptos VM architecture, and evaluating reference projects to inform our design choices.

3. Architectural Innovation:

  • Addressing Solidity limitations by rethinking architectural decisions in Move, with careful consideration given to gas optimization, safety, and security. This process ensured we employed best practices tailored to the Aptos environment.

4. Robust Development Process:

  • Building an MVP to evaluate model robustness, deployability, upgradability, scalability, and security. We re-implemented end-to-end, unit, and integration tests (including backward compatibility tests) and set up comprehensive pipelines for testing, compilation, deployment, audits, and documentation.

5. Tooling and Infrastructure:

  • Developing a complete front-end interface, a TypeScript SDK, and a custom fuzzer to stress-test our implementation. Additionally, we prepared the monitoring services, indexers, Rust-based services, and all necessary infrastructure to support a seamless go-live, including initial configuration, tokens, and faucets.

6. Governance Considerations:

  • Special attention was given to designing a governance strategy that aligns with the needs of a protocol on a new chain—starting with community guardians after launch, with future plans to integrate a full governance solution if market conditions warrant.

The UI is live and fully integrated with the TS SDK ensuring that developers can interact with the protocol and provide valuable feedback during the testnet phase. This level of preparation reflects our commitment to delivering a secure, efficient, and maintainable version of Aave V3 on Aptos.

Architectural Changes

This section outlines how the modern architecture and unique benefits of Aptos were capitalized in building this while ensuring the protocol retains its core functionality and top notch security.

1. Modular Conversion:

  • Ethereum Approach: Aave V3 is composed of multiple interrelated Solidity contracts (e.g., LendingPool, Token Manager, Risk Engine).
  • Aptos Adaptation: Each contract is restructured as a separate Move module. Move’s native module system enforces clear boundaries, enabling better separation of concerns, enhanced security and simplifying future upgrades.

2. Data & State Management:

  • Solidity: State variables are stored in contracts and accessed via delegatable external calls, which can sometimes lead to state inconsistencies.
  • Move: The use of resources in Move ensures that each asset is uniquely tracked and can’t be duplicated or lost. This strict management helps maintain consistency across the protocol’s state, avoiding re-entrances, double spending and other attack vectors. Also, Aptos has a uniquely defined global storage whose resources can only be modified by the owner of the resources thus preventing the storage from being maliciously modified in a transaction.

3. Control Access:

  • Solidity: By design solidity allows external contracts to modify our own contract state which makes it hard to control and avoid unexpected 3rd party breaches.
  • Move: Move modules have full control over their apis and do not allow by design delegate-calls (callbacks) to other contracts which prevents unexpected state-changes, re-entrances and other unwanted effects. On top of that, Aptos has a very secure system of allowing external modules to be friends and only scoping them to a particular scope of methods without ever giving control over its own resources.

4. Dispatch Mechanisms:

  • Solidity: Supports dynamic dispatch mechanism which enables a contract to call any other contract as long as a given interface is implemented. This can be however dangerous and the underlying implementation could often be replaced with a malicious one

  • Move: On the contrary supports only static dispatch which introduces a high degree of security as an external call to a module can only succeed at static compilation at which point contract address and implementation are known and immutable.

Security Enhancements

1. Formal Verification & Type Safety:

  • Move’s Built-in Features: Move was designed from the ground up to support formal verification. We have engaged with Certora to leverage its built-in verifier for mathematically proving smart contract properties, significantly reducing risks like re-entrancy attacks, integer overflows, and other vulnerabilities common in Solidity.

  • Resource-Oriented Programming: Resources in Move can only be created, moved, or destroyed in prescribed ways. This model ensures that token balances and collateral remain consistent and secure throughout all operations.

Performance and Gas Efficiency

1. Optimized Transaction Costs:

  • Gas Model Comparison: Whereas Solidity requires significant manual optimization to reduce gas consumption, Move’s design inherently minimizes resource usage. This results in lower fees and more predictable transaction costs on Aptos.

2. Parallel Execution with Block-STM:

  • Enhanced Throughput: Aptos’s Block-STM consensus allows for parallel transaction processing. This means that high-frequency operations (like loan issuance, repayments, and interest accruals) can be handled simultaneously, reducing bottlenecks and improving overall performance.

3. Atomic Transactions:

  • Consistency: All operations in Move are executed as part of an atomic transaction. This guarantees that either every part of an operation completes successfully or none do, preventing partial state changes and enhancing reliability. Transactions modifying the same state are executed atomically and linearized.

Developer Experience and Future-Proofing

1. Improved Modularity & Maintainability:

  • Move’s Module System: The modular architecture in Move not only organizes code in a logical manner but also facilitates isolated testing, easier upgrades, and reusability of code components.

2. Enhanced Tooling:

  • Ecosystem Maturity: The Move ecosystem is evolving rapidly, building improved IDE plugins, debugging tools, and testing frameworks. These tools will aid developers in writing, testing, and deploying smart contracts with greater confidence.

3. Future Integrations:

  • Adaptability: The structured approach of Move allows for easier integration of new features or protocol improvements in the future. As the Aptos ecosystem grows, Aave V3 can seamlessly evolve to incorporate emerging trends and requirements.

4. Governance Strategy:

  • Phased Approach to Governance: Initially, Aave Labs will retain control of the critical protocol keys while the market is in its early stages. Over the coming months—as the market matures, operates smoothly, and undergoes rigorous verification—we will gradually transition key management to trusted community guardians who will provide oversight and help manage early protocol decisions. In parallel, we will engage with relevant service providers to evaluate the feasibility of integrating the Aave Governance V3 system alongside a.DI, ensuring that future governance processes remain robust and fully aligned with community interests.

Development & Testing

1. Testnet Deployment:

  • A fully functional testnet for Aave V3 on Aptos is already live). This environment is used for rigorous testing of Move modules, simulating real-world scenarios.

2. Audit & Security Reviews:

  • Comprehensive internal and external audits are done and ongoing with companies like: SpearBit/Cantina, Certora and OtterSec. These will focus on ensuring that the Move modules adhere to Aave’s strict security and performance standards.
  • After the audits are complete, a Security Contest will go live followed by a comprehensive Bug Bounty program when we go live. This initiative, funded by Aave Labs, the Security Contest will offer a total reward pool of $150,000 paid in GHO stablecoin. The contest is designed to incentivize thorough testing and uncover any potential vulnerabilities, ensuring that our protocol meets the highest security standards prior to the mainnet launch.

3. Audit Reports: aptos-aave-v3/audits at main · aave/aptos-aave-v3 · GitHub

4. Developer & Community Feedback:

  • Continuous feedback will be solicited from our developer community to ensure that the transition to Move is smooth and that any issues are promptly addressed.

Conclusion

Deploying Aave V3 on Aptos presents a significant opportunity to drive Aave’s growth and expansion. By leveraging Aptos’s innovative capabilities and the power of the Move programming language, we can build a protocol that not only enhances efficiency and security but also broadens our reach into new markets and developer communities. This strategic initiative positions Aave at the forefront of DeFi innovation, enabling us to tap into emerging opportunities and accelerate ecosystem-wide growth.

Next Steps

  1. Integrate Chaos Labs and LamaRisk suggested assets and risk parameters report once available.
  2. Refine the ARFC based on community feedback and risk providers recommendations.
  3. Submit the ARFC for a Snapshot vote for final approval.
  4. If consensus is reached, submit an onchain AIP Vote for Aave V3 on Aptos (upon Mainnet launch)
8 Likes

It is great to see Aave expanding into new markets that are Non-EVM and Move is probably the best candidate out there for the DAO.

But what im wondering is, who will be in charge, at least from the beginning, for listing new assets?
Im unsure if the DAO has enough knowledge in Move and is capable of handling the AIPs to onboard new assets, change parameter etc.

So could @AaveLabs as the leading entity in this initiative, shed some light on this topic?
Also is the Aave guardian prepared if something happens to be able to freeze the market?
At least talking for me, I do currently not know what I would have to do as I haven’t been using Aptos yet.

So would be great to know if everything is setup so far, that we can be sure we keep the security level bar as high as usual and service provider are prepared as well.

Thank you

3 Likes

Summary

LlamaRisk supports Aave’s deployment on Aptos, a non-EVM layer 1 blockchain built on the Move programming language. Aptos provides a resource-oriented framework with unique features like parallel transaction execution and bytecode verification, offering potential advantages for scalability and security. Its current TVL is $958.6M, with over 80% concentrated in lending markets. The recent integration of native USDT and USDC has fueled stablecoin adoption, which accounts for 86% of the network’s assets. While liquidity remains fragmented between native and bridged assets, improvements are underway, positioning Aptos as a growing hub for stablecoin activity.

Aptos uses a Proof-of-Stake consensus with 149 validators and a minimum staking requirement of 1M APT (~$5.6M). This introduces centralization risks due to limited validator diversity and geographic concentration (55% in Europe). Additionally, Aptos penalizes underperforming validators through a missed rewards system instead of slashing, raising concerns about accountability. Despite these challenges, the network is supported by a $1 million bug bounty program and robust growth initiatives, including partnerships with TradFi giants like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton and a $200 million ecosystem grants program.

Aave’s deployment on Aptos could significantly enhance the network’s liquidity and lending market development. Aave’s proven ability to deepen liquidity and attract users was demonstrated on Sonic, where TVL increased by 40% within three weeks of deployment. Liquid staking tokens (LSTs) also present a growth opportunity for Aptos, as only 8.1%% of APT’s supply is in LSTs compared to 76% directly staked with validators. By integrating LSTs as collateral, Aave could unlock additional TVL and lending potential.

LlamaRisk suggests onboarding USDC, USDT, APT, and sUSDe to support the deployment, prioritizing native stablecoins due to reduced dependency risks. While risks related to validator centralization and Move’s relative novelty persist (available toolings and Aave technical adaptations), Aptos’ scalability, growing DeFi ecosystem, and institutional focus make it a promising platform for Aave.

1. Network Fundamental Characteristics

1.1 Network Architecture

Aptos is a layer 1 Proof of Stake network built on the Move programming language, characterized by its resource-oriented architecture, parallel execution engine, and differentiated bytecode verification model. The distributed nodes and smart contract framework that comprise the blockchain aim to increase speed, security, and scalability for low transaction costs. The network mainnet launched in October 2022.

Source: Aptos Transaction Flow, Aptos

Aptos transactions and contract interactions are facilitated by a set of nodes and components, including a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) based consensus model and Move Virtual Machine (MoveVM). The general lifecycle of an Aptos transaction:

  1. Transaction submission
    • 1.1. An Aptos Client constructs a transaction signed by an account’s private key
    • 1.2. Signed transactions include the transaction data (e.g., address, payload, gas price, expiration time), the account’s public key, and signature.
  2. Accepting the transaction
    • 2.1. The Client submits the transaction to the REST service of an Aptos fullnode. The node forwards to its own Mempool, which then sends to other fullnode Mempools. The Validator fullnode mempool eventually sends the transaction to a validator node (lead validator).
    • 2.2. The Validator’s mempool validates the transaction using the VM (signature and account balance verification).
  3. Sharing the transaction
    The transactions held in validator mempools are shared with other validators through the shared-mempool protocol.
  4. Proposing the block
    A validator chosen as Consensus leader for an epoch (see Consensus model section for more details) proposes a block of transactions from its mempool to other validator nodes via its consensus component. The leader coordinates an agreement on the order of transactions.
  5. Executing the block and reaching consensus
    • 5.1. The proposed block is shared with the Execution component, which manages execution within the VM. This occurs before a consensus has been reached
    • 5.2. The executed transactions in the block are appended to the Merkle accumulator (an append-only Merkle tree that Aptos uses to store the ledger).
    • 5.3. The results of the speculative execution are returned to the consensus component. The Consensus Leader then attempts to reach an agreement on these block results from sufficient validator nodes
  6. Committing the block
    If enough validators approve and sign off on the results, the Consensus Leader’s execution component retrieves the speculative execution data and permanently records all the block’s transactions in persistent storage.

For a full breakdown of transaction stages, see Aptos docs here. Overall, Aptos follows an established EVM POS pattern.

1.1.2 Programming Language

The Move language uses a resource-oriented programming framework that treats assets as unique and indivisible properties. Assets are represented as or within resources. The behavior of resources is predefined, requiring explicit duplicate and delete permissions at the bytecode level (using copy or drop)

Access control rules for accounts and modules (libraries or programs) in Move include:

  1. Module access is limited to public functions that other modules can interact with.
  2. Creating, accessing, and changing fields is only possible with modules directly defining the structure. Other modules can only do so if public functions.
  3. Accounts require signer approval to add resources to an account; modules may also require additional signer presence to access resources or modify assets in the account.

Resources (therefore, assets) and module functions have more predetermined behaviors and access measures than EVM.

Asset Standards

Aptos provides two standards for fungible tokens, similar to ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum, a legacy Coin standard and a newer Fungible Asset Standard.

The Digital Asset (DA) standard is the NFT standard for Aptos.

1.1.3 Nodes

Source: Validator node components, Aptos Docs

The node components and inter-component interactions that were mentioned in section 1.1 include:

  1. REST API service: External interface that clients interact with to access storage or other components; requests are filtered
  2. Mempool: In-memory buffer of submitted transactions pending consensus and execution. Distributed between nodes and checks validity.
  3. Consensus: Block ordering component that enables nodes to participate in the consensus protocol with other validators of executed transactions. This component is turned off in fullnodes (see types of nodes below).
  4. Execution: Transactions are executed using the virtual machine, and results are maintained within the component until consensus commits the block to the network ledger. (see section 1.1.5 for more details) .
  5. Virtual Machine: Runs verification checks on transactions, executes transactions, and runs Move program within embedded transactions.
  6. Storage: Local database component of committed blocks of transactions and execution results.
  7. State synchronizer: The component is used to stay up to date with the latest state of the blockchain
Types of nodes

Source: Node Networks and Synchronization, Aptos Docs

Aptos network hierarchy of nodes (see section 1.1 on transaction overview):

  1. Validator nodes (VNs): participate in consensus and process transactions. Validator nodes are the only node type that runs the distributed consensus protocol.
  2. Validator full nodes (VFNs): Update the state of the blockchain, run by the validator operator, and serve requests from public full nodes. Ostensibly operates like a public fullnode.
  3. Public fullnodes (PFNs): Syncs with VFNs or other update PFNs to gain low-latency access to the chain state.
  4. Archival nodes (ANs): Fullnodes that contain all blockchain data since the start of the blockchain’s history.

1.1.4 Consensus Protocol

Source: Consensus component, Aptos Docs

AptosBFT coordinates validators to determine the ordering and acceptance of transactions. Based on Jolteon, the Byzantine Fault Tolerance model determines how many validators operating incorrectly (e.g., offline or malicious) can be tolerated for a system to continue operating. (typically a ⅓ threshold)

Under this model, a single Validator is selected as a consensus leader, with other nodes communicating with the leader. A quorum of votes must be reached for consensus to pass (n-f votes, where ‘n’ is the total number of nodes and ‘f’ is the maximum number of malicious nodes). The validator leader is selected based on a deterministic formula based on a validator’s reputation determined by the Validator’s performance and their staked APT.

A leader is selected for an epoch; a new one is selected. An Aptos epoch is currently set to 7200 seconds/2 hours (duration is determined by onchain governance, potentially unlimited). The selection algorithm ensures that inactive or slow nodes have a lower chance of being selected as a leader, reducing the possibility of network degradation.

Risk considerations
Validators may be left in a validator set but cannot exit due to an epoch reconfiguration not occurring, creating stale/inactive validators (potentially affecting network performance). The team indicated this was an unlikely risk, with a fix possible with a reconfiguration transaction sent to these validators.

Validators

Validator staking is public, with a minimum stake required to join the validator set is 1M APT ($5.6M as of 3/20/25) and a maximum of 50M APT. Slashing is currently not enabled on the network. Instead, a missed rewards system is in place to penalize underperforming validators. Based on discussions in the community forum, slashing is unlikely to be implemented soon.

Voting weights for validators are proportional to their staked amount. Rewards are distributed solely to validator leaders, calculated based on a rewards_rate, staked amount, and proposer performance in the Aptos governance.

Validators can unlock their staked assets at any time, with APT becoming withdrawable after a fixed lockup period expires. Lockups can last as long as the fixed lockup duration. Fixed lockup is determined by Aptos governance.

Risk considerations
Aptos has set a high minimum threshold for validators relative to Ethereum (32 ETH). This centralization risk, coupled with how lead validators are selected, creates a small pool of validators, with highly staked validators having an advantage in being chosen to lead consensus more often than others.

Currently, there are 149 validator nodes distributed between 23 countries; the majority are based in Europe. While the number of validators is low relative to Ethereum, node performance as measured by ‘reward performance’ (% of reward earned by the Validator out of the maximum reward earning opportunity), i.e., proposal success rate, the majority of scores observed ranged between 95 - 100% (with 91.93% as the lowest score).

1.1.5 Virtual Machine

Source: Virtual Machine component, Aptos docs

Aptos leverages the Move VM to verify bytecode, execute transaction scripts, and produce execution results to update the blockchain state. Move VM transactions differ from EVM transactions by embedding scripts in transactions rather than relying on pre-deployed smart contracts.

The virtual machine component runs Move scripts in each transaction to determine execution results, verifying transactions from the mempool (e.g., signature and program) and executing transactions from the execution component.

Transactions on Aptos are executed in parallel, with multiple transactions handled simultaneously. As of December 2024, Aptos blocks closed on average within 250ms.

Key technical features enabled by Virtual Machine include:

  1. Bytecode Verification: A safety mechanism that verifies if bytecode adheres to security and correctness standards before running. The process includes type checking, resource usage analysis, and program form assessment.
  2. Block-STM: A parallel execution engine within the execution component developed by the Aptos Labs team.

The verification processes include layers of protection against malformed code. Malicious or bad code must be intentionally created, as the compiler does not produce malformed programs by default. Checks are performed during publication and loading to ensure Move standards are maintained. Lastly, an additional run-time “paranoid” mode checks to catch bytecode that may have evaded detection.

1.1.6 EVM Comparison

Feature EVM Move VM
Data Storage Data is stored in the smart contract’s storage space. Data is stored across smart contracts, user accounts, and objects.
Parallelization Parallel execution is limited due to shared storage space. More parallel execution enabled due to flexible split storage design.
VM and Language Integration Separate layers for EVM and smart contract languages (e.g., Solidity). Seamless integration between VM layer and Move language, with native Rust functions executable in Move.
Critical Network Operations Implementation of network operations can be complex and less direct. Critical operations (e.g., validator set management) natively implemented in Move for direct execution.
Function Calling Dynamic dispatch allows for arbitrary smart contract calls. Static dispatch aligns with a focus on security and predictable behavior.
Type Safety Contract types provide a level of type safety. Module structs and generics in Move offer robust type safety.
Transaction Safety Uses nonces for transaction ordering and safety. Uses sequence numbers for transaction ordering and safety.
Authenticated Storage Yes, with smart contract storage. Yes, leveraging Move’s resource model.
Object Accessibility Objects are not globally accessible; bound to smart contract scope. Guaranteed global accessibility of objects.

Source: Comparing EVM and Move VM, Aptos Docs

1.1.7 Value Proposition

  1. Chain Throughput
    Widely adopted by chains such as Polygon and Starknet, the execution engine supports complex, high-frequency operations and offers improved throughput (up to 32,000 TPS).
  2. Resource Architecture
    Assets defined uniquely with predefined behaviors (from approved accounts) offer the advantages of reduced errors and the risk of duplications relative to EVM variables in accounts.
  3. Verification Layers
    Embedded security measures in bytecode verification would provide a layer of security for asset deployments on Aave, reducing reliance on audits and smart contract risk related to common EVM vulnerabilities such re-entrancy attacks and integer overflows.
  4. Diversification
    A potential first deployment to a non-EVM chain allows Aave to expand its capabilities outside EVMs. Introducing a new ecosystem enables Aave to diversify into other languages and broaden the protocol’s technical possibilities.

Risk considerations
Risks and concerns include the Move language’s relative novelty, limited developer support, and less mature tooling, which may affect long-term reliability and integration. Additionally, the absence of slashing and reliance on a missed rewards system could weaken validator accountability and network stability.

Aptos is developing tools to help developers write, test, and deploy smart contracts on the network with IDE plugins, debug tools, and testing frameworks.

1.1.8 Bug bounty

Aptos has a $1 million bug bounty program live on HackenProof, covering the aptos-core repository in its scope. Aptos code has been audited by Certik, with its current security audit partners including Zellic, MoveBit, OtterSec, and Halborn.

Aave Labs has been testing v3 on testnet and working closely with the Aptos team and other stakeholders such as auditors and Chainlink.

1.2 Decentralization and Legal Evaluation

The global validator node distribution for Aptos:

  • Number of validator nodes: 149
  • Nakamoto Coefficient: 18

Aptos’ geographical stake distribution spans 27 countries and 57 cities, with 55.7% in Europe, 19.5% in Asia, 22.8% across North America, and 2% across the Rest of the World, indicating a high concentration of nodes in Europe.

The network features validator nodes for consensus participation, validator full nodes (VFNs) for data distribution to validators, and public full nodes (PFNs) accessible to anyone for indexing, querying, and APIs.

Source: Aptos Governance Proposal Flowchart, Aptos

Aptos community members can actively participate in governance by using their stake to create and vote on proposals. Onchain governance can change all network configurations, including:

  • Blockchain parameters, e.g., epoch durations, reward rate, gas schedule, and min/max validator stake.
  • Change core blockchain code.
  • Upgrade or change Aptos modules, e.g., fix bugs, change functionality.
  • Introduce new framework modules.

The aptos_governance module outlines how users can interact with governance. Anyone can enact a proposal that has passed voting using the Aptos governance execute-proposal command from Aptos CLI.

Proposals (AIPs) are posted and discussed within the community, with a voting period lasting 72 hours. A minimum participation threshold of 400M APT is required to proceed with a proposal. However, a governance proposal is currently being voted on to lower the threshold to 300M APT (~35%). Some notable proposals include new SDK development and delegation for operators.

Visibility in the number of unique addresses turning out to vote is low with only the level of participation, i.e., percentage of total supply, displayed on the governance portal.

Legal Commentary

Ecosystem development is entrusted to the Aptos Foundation and Aptos Labs. The Foundation is organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands and maintains aptosfoundation.org and aptos.dev as informational resources. Any authority over the Aptos Network—including oversight of on-chain activity and data, the validation of network transactions, and any actions taken by developers and users—is not vested in the Foundation. Indeed, the Foundation expressly disclaims control or responsibility concerning these functions.

Aptos Labs, subjected to the U.S. Federal Arbitration Act, federal arbitration law, and the laws of the State of California as indicated in the Terms’ Governing Law provision, is responsible for operating aptoslabs.com and graffio.art, as well as providing the Aptos Explorer, various APIs, SDKs, code repositories, dApp templates, smart contracts, and other developer resources. This also includes certain components of Aptos Keyless and the Aptos Learn platform. Like the Foundation, Aptos Labs disclaims any direct authority over the Aptos Network.

Notwithstanding these disclaimers, the Terms of Service for aptosfoundation.org and aptoslabs.com state that “Aptos is not offered to anyone who is a ‘Restricted Person’”. Under these Terms, an individual or entity is deemed a Restricted Person is subject to sanctions administered or enforced by any government or if appearing on any list of prohibited or restricted parties, including those maintained by the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. Government, the European Union or its Member States, or other relevant governmental authorities. These restrictions also encompass any citizen, organization, or resident in a territory subject to comprehensive sanctions, such as Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions, Iran, or Syria.

Censorship controls may be implemented by specific projects built atop Aptos. However, the underlying network does not provide or enforce system-wide freeze functionality.

1.3 Activity Benchmarks

Source: Aptos TVL & Stablecoin Market Cap, DeFiLlama, April 16th, 2025

The current TVL for Aptos stands at $958.6M, down from its ATH of $1.3B on December 17th, 2024. The stablecoin market cap doubled in December to $660M after the announcement of native USDT and USDC support. Since this initial spike in stablecoins, the market cap has steadily risen to $1.07B.

Lending Markets (as of April 16th, 2025)

Protocol TVL Total Supply Total Borrow Utilization Total Assets
Aries Markets $342M $545M $326M 59.8% 11
Echelon Market $187M $285.5M $81.5M 28.5% 24
Thala CDP $16.3M $13.9M $586K 4.2% 10
Meso Finance $23.4m $102M $78.35M 76.8% 16
Superposition $14.2M $31.8M $12.3M 38.7% 17
Aptin Finance $13.7M $24.5M $10M 40.8% 12
Echo Protocol $207.4M $226.1M $19.9M 8.8% 5
Joule Finance $4.7M $16.7M $8.5M 50.9% 13

The lending markets represent a combined TVL of roughly $808.7M, an 84.4% share of the network’s TVL.

2. Network Market Outlook

2.1 Market Infrastructure

Source: Top 10 DeFi Projects on Aptos by TVL, DeFiLlama, April 16th, 2025.

There are a total of 43 DeFi projects on Aptos. The top projects category-wise with TVL (volume for aggregators):

  • Lending: (see section 1.3.)
  • DEXs: ThalaSwap ($76.5M), Cellana Finance (40.8M), LiquidSwap ($18.6M), PancakeSwap ($10.2M), Sushi ($8.3M), Hyperion ($7.2M), Panora (Aggregator), Kana (Aggregator)
  • Liquid Staking: Amnis Finance ($186.7M), Thala LSD ($51.1M), TruStake ($48.6M)
  • Restaking: Echo ($3.6M)
  • RWA: Ondo Finance ($7.6M), Blackrock BUIDL, Franklin Templeton BENJI, Securitize $ACRED
  • Derivatives: Merkle Trade ($5.7M), Econia ($1.3M), Thetis Perps ($0.7M)

Tooling

Aptos is supported by leading bridging solutions, including LayerZero, Wormhole Bridge, Celer, Echo Bridge, Meson, Mover, Circle CCTP, and GALNT.

A total of 25 wallet providers are available, the prominent ones being Petra (by Aptos Labs), Bitget Wallet, OKX Wallet, and MSafe (multisig). Petra Wallet features Coinbase Pay and MoonPay, providing users with fiat on/off-ramp.

Additionally, RPC node services are provided by Ankr, BlockPI, and Chainstack. Pyth Network, Chainlink, and Switchboard are the oracle providers for Aptos.

2.2 Liquidity Landscape

Stablecoin

The stablecoin distribution on Aptos is as follows (as of April 17th, 2025):

The bridged variants are slowly fading since USDT and USDC are now natively available on Aptos, reducing dependency risks on third-party bridges and liquidity fragmentation. Native USDC will likely gain more adoption on Aptos as CCTP has been enabled for bridging. Additionally, Ethena recently launched on Aptos, allowing USDe and sUSDe integrations. The market cap of sUSDe on Aptos currently sits at $106.3M.

DEXs

Top 10 LPs by TVL across Aptos (as of April 17th, 2025):

DEX Pools TVL 24h Volume
Thala Swap sUSDe/USDC $24.6M $230.4K
Cellana amAPT/APT $10.8M $256.7K
Thala Swap USDC/USDT $16.3M $8.3M
Thala Swap APT/thAPT $8.9M $66.6K
Cellana aBTC/APT $7.9M $624.7K
Cellana TruAPT/APT $6.9M $0.0
LiquidSwap amAPT/APT $5.6M $50.7K
Thala Swap APT/USDC $7.3M $2.3M
LiquidSwap USDC/APT $5.9M $389K
Thala Swap APT/USDT $5M $1.5M

Source: Panora, April 16th, 2025. USDC & USDT swaps against APT within <5% slippage.

While USDC and USDT are natively available on Aptos, liquidity remains fragmented between bridged variants. This is reflected in the low liquidity of both native USDC ($1.09M) and USDT ($1.15M) relative to available chain supply ($283.7M and $1.13B, respectively).

Source: Panora, April 16th, 2025. APT & sUSDe swaps within <7.5% slippage.

Despite its recent launch, a promising sign for Aptos is the high supply of sUSDe at 91M ($106.3M). DEX liquidity within 7.5% price impact is high at 11.1M.

Bridges

Source: Aptos Bridged TVL Breakdown, DeFiLlama, April 17th, 2025.

Bridged TVL Breakdown:

Description Asset Value
Echo Bridge aBTC $211.8M
LayerZero lzUSDC $27.3M
lzSBTC $67.7M
lzUSDT $8.5M
lzWETH $4.7M
lzWBTC $5.8M
Wormhole Bridge whUSDC $5.9M
whSOL $5.8M
whUSDT $4.4M
whWBTC $3.1M
whWETH $1.4M
Celer ceUSDC $0.44M
ceWETH $0.16M
ceUSDT $0.13M

All BTC and ETH derivatives are supplied via bridges. Bridged USDC and USDT assets have slowed as native USDC and USDT have become available.

2.3 Ecosystem Growth Initiatives

The Aptos Foundation manages ecosystem grants program to support builders and community growth, offering $5,000 to $50,000 funding. 125M APT tokens were allocated at launch to support ecosystem projects, grants, and community growth initiatives. Recently, Aptos committed to spending $200M in a new grants and investments program.

Aptos Ascend program caters to TradFi institutions to onboard and use its secure and scalable tech. Current partners include MSFT, SK Telecom, Brevan Howard, and BCG. Also, Elliptic and Aptos Foundation have partnered to enable compliance screening and risk services for Aptos network.

The Aptos LFM program aims to support existing projects close to TGE through dedicated support infra, providing access to networks, fundraising, and token strategy guidance.

Native minting for both USDT and USDC was introduced, leading to an increase in stablecoin market cap and decrease in bridged stablecoin assets. As discussed earlier, the integration of Ethena allows for new yield-farming strategies, bolstering TVL on Aptos.

The onboarding of USDC introduces its CCTP technology, enabling seamless transfers across eight major chains, including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, and Base. Additionally, the Aptos Foundation has announced plans to launch Stripe payment services integrated with native USDC, facilitating a fiat on-ramp for users.

Aptos also hosts some of the market’s largest tokenized RWAs, including BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund, Franklin Templeton’s FOBXX Fund, and Ondo Finance’s USDY token. Additionally, Aptos just announced that PACT Protocol, an RWA credit protocol, will be migrating to Aptos. These developments underscore Aptos’ trajectory toward becoming the preferred blockchain for tokenized assets and institutions seeking secure, high-performance onchain solutions.

2.4 Major and Native Asset Outlook

Due to the relatively recent integration of native USDT and USDC on Aptos, their liquidity and market presence remain limited. However, liquidity for USDT and USDC has been in an uptrend since integration, with the recent addition of CCTP likely pushing further adoption. Bridged WETH (LayerZero, Wormhole, Celer) and WBTC (LayerZero, Wormhole) are available, too. Additionally, aBTC, a BTC restaking token from Echo Protocol, is the most significant bridged asset (as shown in section 2.2).

APT is the native token of Aptos, facilitating transaction fees and enabling governance participation for users staking APT with validators. The current annual staking reward rate is 7%. Both locked and unlocked APT can be staked.

Source: APT Vesting Schedule, Aptos

Currently, the circulating supply is 617M APT, with 1% of the total supply being released monthly. The Aptos Foundation holds 80% of the 510M APT community tokens, while Aptos Labs controls 100M APT. Anchorage, Coinbase, and Copper manage foundation wallets. In addition to their custodian services, they also insure custodied assets.

The network also features various liquid staking tokens (LSTs) for APT, including (as of April 17th, 2025):

The combined market cap of Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) is $440M, accounting for just 8.1% of APT’s $5.4B total market cap. Notably, 76% of APT supply is directly staked with validators, offering a 7% APR, highlighting the significant untapped potential for LST adoption and growth.

As mentioned in sections 1.1.4 and 1.2, validator centralization is characterized by geographical concentration (50% in Europe) and minimum staking requirements (1M APT). Relative to Ethereum, this level of centralization creates an unhealthy reliance on a single jurisdiction (e.g., potential regulation that could impact the network’s performance). A limited set of validators increases exposure to potential malicious or inactive validator risk. Even if slashing were implemented, it would likely do little to minimize these centralization factors.

3. Onchain Discoverability

The Aptos ecosystem is supported by a diverse range of tools, including blockchain explorers such as AptoScan (by Etherscan), Aptos Explorer (by Aptos Labs), TraceMove, Xangle Explorer, and OkLink (by OKX), alongside data providers like Google BigQuery, Dune, Flipside, Sentio, and Space and Time.

Analytics dashboards are available on platforms such as DeFiLlama, TokenTerminal, The Tie, Nansen, DappRadar, SuperAptos, Dune, and Flipside, offering detailed insights into the Aptos ecosystem.

4. Impact of Aave Deployment

Lending markets account for 59% of the network’s total TVL. Echelon Market, leveraging Aave’s E-Mode design, has significantly enhanced capital efficiency, establishing itself as the second-largest lending protocol on Aptos. Aave’s proven track record of efficient lending markets will dramatically enhance DeFi on Aptos by attracting more users. The recent deployment of Aave on Sonic depicts how Aave attracts TVL, with Sonic’s TVL rising by over 40% in the three weeks after Aave was deployed. This aligns with the recent launch of native USDT, USDC, and USDe on Aptos, further stimulating lending and borrowing activities on the network. The increased usage of stablecoins caused by Aave will help the entirety of Aptos by deepening liquidity.

Also, LSTs account for only 7.6% of APT’s supply, compared to 77% staked directly with validators. This underscores significant growth potential for liquid staking, which, as adoption increases, could serve as collateral to enhance Aave’s TVL in the future.

5. Asset Suggestions

Our methodology for onboarding assets focuses on three key criteria: prior successful integration and risk assessment within the Aave ecosystem, asset TVL on the network, and the available liquidity relative to the total asset TVL.

Suggested assets for onboard:

Asset Onchain Supply DEX Liquidity
USDC 241M 1.09M
USDT 1.13B 1.15M
APT 1.15B 369K
sUSDe 91M 11.1M

Other significant assets on the network, such as aBTC, amAPT, and stAPT, have not been considered due to not being previously onboarded and require a separate risk assessment. Although lzUSDC offers similar liquidity to native USDT and USDC, it presents additional security considerations due to being a bridged variant. The suggested supply cap for APT should be determined following a risk assessment of Aptos’ native token.

Aave V3 Specific Parameters

Will be coordinated and presented jointly with @ChaosLabs

Price feed Recommendation

Chainlink price feeds are available for the suggested assets through a single price feed contract.

Note: This assessment follows the LLR-Network Qualification Framework, a comprehensive methodology for network onboarding and parameterization in Aave V3. This framework is continuously updated and available here.

Disclaimer

This review was independently prepared by LlamaRisk, a community-led decentralized organization funded in part by the Aave DAO. LlamaRisk is not directly affiliated with the protocol(s) reviewed in this assessment and did not receive any compensation from the protocol(s) or their affiliated entities for this work.

The information provided should not be construed as legal, financial, tax, or professional advice.

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