Trading Infrastructure & Protocol Advancements
-
Decibel, a fully on-chain trading engine, launched on Aptos. It brings spot trading, perpetuals, vaults, and yield strategies into a single integrated interface, matching centralized exchange speeds with decentralized composability (Messari, AInvest).
-
Shelby, created in partnership with Jump Crypto, delivers Web2-grade data storage with sub-second read latency—an upgrade vital for real-time, high-throughput Web3 applications (Messari, Aptos).
-
Baby Raptr, the initial component of Aptos’ next-gen consensus protocol, cut validator latency by 20 percent (100–150 ms), paving the way for future tools like Zaptos and Shardines (Messari, Aptos).
DeFi Expansion & Liquidity Dynamics
-
The stablecoin market cap on Aptos rose 85.9 percent in H1, from $649 million to $1.2 billion driven mainly by native deployments of USDT and USDC (Messari, Stakin).
-
Quarterly DEX volume exploded 310.3 percent to $9.0 billion in Q2. Hyperion and ThalaSwap V2 led this surge, showcasing increased liquidity and trading activity (Messari, Stakin).
-
Aptos now ranks third globally in real-world asset (RWA) TVL, with over $723 million locked on-chain highlighting its growing role in tokenized finance (Stakin).
Network Performance & Fee Efficiency
-
Transaction fees dropped 61.1 percent to just $0.00052, underscoring Aptos as one of the most affordable Layer-1 blockchains often 10 100x cheaper than alternatives (Messari, Aptos).
-
Monthly active users remained strong at over 10 million, and average daily transactions maintained market-leading throughput despite a slight mid-year dip (Messari, Aptos).
Ecosystem Development & Strategic Growth
-
The Aptos Foundation injected $200 million into ecosystem grants and investments, accelerating DeFi expansion, liquidity programs, and new protocol launches (Aptos, Stakin).
-
Aave V3 received governance approval for deployment on Aptos marking its first non-EVM integration and expanding asset support to include APT, USDC, USDT, and sUSDe (Aptos).
Key Metrics Summary
| Metric | H1 2025 Outcome |
|---|---|
| Stablecoin Market Cap | +85.9% → $1.2B |
| Quarterly DEX Volume (Q2) | +310.3% → $9.0B |
| Avg Transaction Fee | -61.1% → $0.00052 |
| RWA TVL | Over $723M; ranked 3rd globally |
| Active Users | Sustained >10M MAU |
| Ecosystem Funding | $200M committed to growth & DeFi |
Takeaway: Aptos isn’t just growing it’s accelerating. With major upgrades and real DeFi activity, it’s becoming the high-performance bleeding edge of next-gen on-chain finance.
source:Aptos H1 2025: The Global Trading Engine Accelerates | Messari