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Author: Charlotte
With BTC prices breaking the $89,000 mark, the market has entered a long-awaited bull market atmosphere, with altcoins experiencing significant gains, and several blockchain tokens seeing near-doubling in price. However, the market's recovery has not yet brought about the emergence of mainstream sectors, and currently, there is a lack of a dominant narrative in the market, which may continue for some time. In the absence of a clear narrative, focusing on public chain ecosystems to identify potential Beta and Alpha may be a feasible trading strategy in the near term. Therefore, we have developed an analytical framework to compare and analyze the recent standout performers, Sui and Aptos, within this framework.
The most direct driver for the explosive growth of a public chain will be the large influx of capital. A surge of liquidity entering the ecosystem can accelerate its development, and the wealth effect brought about by liquidity overflow will attract more market attention and capital, further increasing the ecosystem's activity. Therefore, when evaluating a public chain ecosystem, we focus on the factors that could attract significant capital inflows, the ability of the chain to absorb liquidity, and the data metrics that reflect capital and user inflows.
Whether it's ETH during the ICO and NFT boom, SOL during the Memecoin era, or BTC during the inscription period (which was driven by both mining and purchasing to increase demand and consumption), native tokens serve as the primary trading units. When phenomena like NFTs and Memecoins create significant wealth effects, users need to purchase the native token to enter the new "Crypto Casino," thus creating huge native demand for blockchain tokens, driving up prices and fueling ecosystem growth. These large "Casinos" are both part of the ecosystem, directly pushing the growth of public chain tokens through their prosperity, while also attracting significant capital onto the chain. This liquidity overflow will enrich other ecosystem projects, revitalizing the entire ecosystem.
In this regard, public chains and exchanges often conflict, as high-quality projects often conduct their Token Generation Events (TGEs) directly on exchanges, which does not benefit the public chain itself. To create a native token trading environment on the public chain, the ecosystem must rely on new assets that either exist only on the chain or are initially chain-only, such as NFTs, inscriptions, and Memecoins. We will closely monitor the issuance of new wealth-creating assets on different public chains, though we have not yet observed significant innovation in this area. Thus, in the short term, we will focus on which public chain can absorb more liquidity overflow from Solana's Meme sector.
The maturity of infrastructure determines whether capital will stay after entering. A user-friendly experience and diverse capital yield strategies are more likely to help retain both users and capital. Attractive liquidity channels and incentive mechanisms are essential for facilitating capital inflows. There are three main sources of capital: other public chains, centralized exchanges (CEX), and Web2. The friction of capital migration increases as it moves through each layer, and the ability to attract capital from multiple levels will be more beneficial for the public chain's growth.
For example, Base, backed by Coinbase, has bridged the gap between centralized exchanges and the blockchain by allowing a direct entry path from exchanges to the chain. Additionally, the issuance of cbBTC and liquidity mining incentives have attracted more Total Value Locked (TVL) to its ecosystem. Solana is promoting the development of Payment and Payfi sectors, hoping to draw Web2 capital onto the blockchain.
This includes the public chain’s planned development path, primary markets, and core sectors. For example, the Solana team has a very clear development path in this cycle, starting with a strong focus on the Meme sector to attract a large number of users and liquidity. Subsequently, they pushed for the growth of the Payfi and DePIN sectors, leveraging the high-performance capabilities of the blockchain to attract top-tier projects like Render, Grass, and IO.net. In contrast, Ethereum is lacking a clear strategic development direction, and its Rollup-centric roadmap has faced considerable criticism.
TVL (Total Value Locked) in a public chain is often used as a key metric for assessing the ecosystem’s financial scale. However, TVL is mainly composed of the public chain’s token and ecosystem tokens, which are heavily affected by token prices and may not accurately reflect capital inflows. Additionally, platforms like DeFiLlama directly aggregate the TVL from various DeFi protocols, but tokens in circulation are not considered part of the TVL. The circulation of tokens may indicate a stronger demand for trading.
Therefore, this article will focus on metrics such as the growth of stablecoin market capitalization, net capital inflows into the ecosystem, and DEX trading volume as indicators of changes in liquidity, while also tracking user activity levels.
The growth of a public chain ecosystem is generally closely linked to the price of its native token. As the price of the public chain token rises, it attracts more market attention. After a significant increase in token prices, the market will look for investment opportunities within the ecosystem to generate higher returns. This liquidity overflow will further promote ecosystem prosperity and enhance the overall wealth effect within the ecosystem. Tokenomics and the distribution of the token supply will determine the resistance to price increases and the available time window for growth. Tokens with less resistance and greater growth potential are more likely to drive overall ecosystem prosperity.
Sui is a high-performance Layer 1 public blockchain built on the Move programming language, developed by Mysten Labs. In terms of performance, according to data released by the Sui Foundation, Sui’s peak TPS (transactions per second) can reach up to 297,000. In real-world operations, the current peak TPS on Sui is around 800.
Regarding its funding background, Sui completed Series A and Series B rounds, raising a total of $336M, with a Series B valuation of $2B. Its investors include prominent funds such as A16z, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, and others.
Sui's mainnet launched on May 3, 2023. Over the past year and a half, the TVL (Total Value Locked) in the Sui ecosystem has rapidly increased, currently ranking 5th among all public blockchains. It has developed a comprehensive DeFi infrastructure, including DEXs (Decentralized Exchanges), lending protocols, stablecoins, and liquid staking. In the early stages, Sui’s ecosystem did not gain many stable daily active users. However, from May 2024, it began attracting a significant number of users, with daily active users currently stabilizing around 1 million.
SUI’s token price entered a rapid upward phase in September, becoming one of the top-performing crypto assets of the month, significantly outperforming BTC and SOL. Recently, its price has approached previous highs. Along with the price surge, Sui has announced several ecosystem developments:
On September 2, 2024, Sui unveiled the handheld gaming console SuiPlay0X1, which natively supports Sui-based games as well as the Steam and Epic Games libraries. The console is priced at $599 and is expected to ship in 2025.
On September 12, 2024, Grayscale announced the launch of the Grayscale SUI Trust Fund, officially opening it to accredited investors. As of October 8, 2024, the fund’s AUM (Assets Under Management) surpassed $2.7M.
On September 17, 2024, Sui partnered with Circle to expand USDC to the Sui network. By October 8, 2024, native USDC had already launched on the Sui mainnet.
On October 1, 2024, Sui Bridge went live on the mainnet, initially supporting ETH and WETH bridging between Sui and Ethereum, secured by Sui network validators.
The Sui ecosystem hasn't seen many new asset innovations, but the trading of memecoins saw significant activity in early October. Tokens like HIPPO, BLUB, FUD, AAA, and LOOPY performed well, with HIPPO especially creating substantial wealth effects. HIPPO is currently the third-largest token in the Sui ecosystem, just behind CETUS and DEEP. Compared to its lows, HIPPO’s price has increased over 50 times, and after a drop of more than 70% from its peak, it has experienced a major recovery. The enthusiasm for memecoin trading is also reflected in the rapid increase in new token creations. Since mid-September, more than 300 new tokens have been created on Sui daily, with several days in October seeing over 1,000 new tokens, although this figure has since dropped to lower levels.
In terms of memecoin trading infrastructure, Cetus is the main AMM (Automated Market Maker), and trading bots typically use PinkPunkBot. Movepump serves as a memecoin launchpad similar to Pump.fun, where tokens are listed on the BlueMove DEX once liquidity reaches a threshold. This has led to a significant increase in TVL and trading volume data in early October.
According to Sui Directory statistics, there are currently 86 projects in the Sui ecosystem. Excluding infrastructure, the majority are in gaming (23 projects) and DeFi (16 projects). According to CoinGecko data, the market capitalization of Sui ecosystem projects is relatively low. Among the top 500 projects by market cap, only SUI and the recently emerged HIPPO are included. Among the top 1,000 projects, excluding stablecoins, there are only FUD, CETUS, BLUB, and NAVX—meaning there are relatively few investable projects, primarily consisting of memecoins and DeFi leaders.
According to DeFiLlama, there are 40 DeFi protocols in the Sui ecosystem, with the top three being: NAVI Protocol (Lending), Cetus AMM (DEX), and Suilend (Lending). The TVLs of Scallop Lend (Lending) and Aftermath Finance (Trading Aggregator & Liquid Staking) follow closely behind. Other notable protocols include yield aggregator AlphaFi, stablecoin protocol Bucket, and derivatives exchange Bluefin.
NAVI Protocol: The leading lending protocol in the Sui ecosystem, with a TVL of $314.8M, providing a total loan volume of $464.63M, of which $149.83M has been borrowed. The TVL is primarily composed of WUSDC and SUI, as well as SUI-based derivatives. The total WUSDC on the Sui chain is $283.05M, and WUSDC constitutes approximately 30% of NAVI’s TVL. NAVI Protocol is also building Volo, a liquid staking protocol for SUI. The NAVX token has performed well, increasing more than 6 times from a low of $0.003 on August 5 to $0.19 at present. NAVX was listed on Bybit and launched on Launchpool on October 4.
Suilend: The second-largest lending protocol on Sui, with a total loan volume of $227.58M and a borrowed amount of $57.69M. Its TVL is primarily composed of SUI and WUSDC, similar to NAVI Protocol, though it has not yet introduced SUI-based derivatives. This project is developed by the team behind Solend, which allows for the staking of SOL in the Sui ecosystem. Both Suilend and NAVI Protocol incentivize lending activities with SUI or SUI derivatives, with Suilend using SUI and NAVI using vSUI. In May 2024, Suilend launched a reward program for users who deposit assets into the platform.
Web3 Gaming has always been a crucial part of the Sui ecosystem's strategy. The Move programming language used by Sui employs an object-oriented architecture, making objects the basic unit of data storage rather than the account-based model used by other blockchains. This enables the definition of more complex and composable on-chain game assets. Additionally, Sui’s scalability and features such as zkLogin provide a Web2-like gaming experience for users.
In the early stages of the Sui ecosystem’s development, its flagship game, Abyss World, garnered significant market attention, with backing from AMD and Epic Games. On June 24, 2023, Japan’s social gaming giant announced it would become a validator node and develop games on the Sui network. On September 22, 2023, South Korean game developer NHN was reported to be developing blockchain games on Sui. On September 28, 2023, Sui launched the Web3 game portal Play Beyond, allowing users to explore Sui-based games in one place. However, due to the underperformance of blockchain gaming in this cycle, Sui has not yet produced any breakout games. Data shows that while gaming and social projects were the main sources of Sui users in 2023, the ecosystem has entered a quieter phase in 2024.
Recently, Sui’s ecosystem has been ramping up efforts across various areas, with a strategic focus that mirrors the early days of Solana: the price of the SUI token is rising rapidly, meme tokens are creating wealth effects, ecosystem tokens are soaring, and several positive developments—such as Grayscale launching the Sui Trust Fund, native USDC entering the Sui ecosystem, and ecosystem tokens listing on core CEXs—have quickly captured market attention. These efforts have fueled comparisons to a “Solana Killer.” Sui’s ecosystem still places a heavy emphasis on gaming, evidenced by the launch of SuiPlay0X1 and promotional materials from Grayscale about Sui-based games.
Additionally, the South Korean market has shown strong interest in Sui, with SUI token trading volume ranking highly on Upbit. In terms of SUI token spot trading volume, Upbit ranks just behind Binance, highlighting the importance of the South Korean market to the Sui ecosystem.
The TVL (Total Value Locked) in the Sui ecosystem has grown rapidly since August 5, increasing from around $300 million at its lowest point to over $1 billion. However, since the TVL is mainly composed of SUI and ecosystem tokens, this figure does not accurately reflect the real influx of funds into the Sui ecosystem.
A more accurate indicator may be the market cap of stablecoins and the flow of funds. Currently, the stablecoin market cap in the Sui ecosystem is approximately $380 million. After August 6, the stablecoin market cap increased to $437 million but quickly declined thereafter. Looking at the capital inflows, Sui has had positive net inflows in both the past month and past three months, ranking third among all public blockchain ecosystems in terms of fund inflows, indicating a healthy capital flow. When examining the sources of capital inflows and outflows, Ethereum is the primary origin for both.
In terms of trading activity, the DEX (Decentralized Exchange) volume in Sui ranks 6th among all blockchain ecosystems. Since September, trading volume has seen a significant recovery, now exceeding the peak levels of March-April, with daily trading volume surpassing $200 million. Cetus, the main AMM (Automated Market Maker) on Sui, contributes over 85% of the trading volume, with the main trading pairs being SUI-USDC, SUI-wUSDC, HIPPO-SUI, and CETUS-SUI.
The total number of active users in the Sui ecosystem has risen, but the activity is mainly concentrated in the Social sector, with popular dApps (decentralized applications) like RECRD, BIRDS, and FanTv. However, these dApps have not seen a corresponding increase in market discussions, leaving the question of how many real users they have still uncertain. After excluding the Social sector and the Other sector where BIRDS belongs, the user activity in Sui’s ecosystem has not significantly increased. Specifically, the daily active wallets in the DeFi sector are only between 1,000 and 5,000. In comparison to DeFi-centric ecosystems like Ethereum and Solana, the DeFi activity in Sui is relatively weak, and the user structure is not yet healthy. The true number of active users remains a point of doubt.
October 2024 witnessed a surge in memecoin activity within the Sui ecosystem, with daily active user peaks surpassing 50,000. However, this craze was short-lived, and meme-related activity has since declined significantly, reaching new lows.
The flow of SUI tokens within the system is illustrated in the diagram below. Sui has a Storage Fund, which collects a portion of the Storage fees paid by users and part of the Stake Rewards. The fund flow for each Epoch is as follows:
Users submit transactions and pay the corresponding Computation fees and Storage fees, with the Storage fees directly entering the Storage Fund.
New SUI token inflation and Computation fees together make up the Stake rewards.
The total staking amount for each round consists of two parts: the user's stake α% and the Storage Fund’s portion (1-α)%.
The γα proportion of the Stake rewards is distributed to stakers and delegated stakers.
The remaining * (1-γ)(1-α) * of the Stake rewards is transferred to the Storage Fund.
If a user deletes stored data, the Storage Fund will return part of the storage fees to the user.
As a result, in the early stages of the Sui ecosystem's development, the Storage Fund did not have any outflows other than the refund for deleted data, creating a token locking mechanism. When the locked portion exceeds the token inflation, the SUI token enters a deflationary mode.
Regarding token distribution, the total supply of SUI is 10 billion, and the token unlock schedule was disclosed by Sui on June 29, 2023, as shown in the diagram below. According to the Token Unlock data, the SUI token distribution is represented in the pie chart. As of now, the circulating supply of SUI is 2,763,841,372.61, accounting for 27.64%. Currently, the main inflationary pressure on SUI comes from staking rewards and token unlocking. Starting from April 2024, tokens for investors, early contributors, and the team began to unlock monthly. On November 1, 2024, a total of 64.19 million SUI tokens were unlocked, accounting for 2.32% of the circulating supply. Ongoing token unlocking and inflation could pose a pressure point for the price of SUI.
From a price performance perspective, the SUI to BTC exchange rate has been very strong. After dropping to a low point on October 29, it quickly rebounded and continued to rise after a period of adjustment. After November 9, the price surged dramatically, breaking the highs seen earlier this year.
In the past month, there has been a significant increase in market attention toward the Sui ecosystem, mainly driven by the wealth effects of SUI and its ecosystem tokens. We can observe that Sui and its ecosystem are forming synergy by quickly attracting market attention through price surges and positive news releases. At the same time, Sui continues to prioritize gaming as one of the main pillars of its ecosystem and has made significant strides in the South Korean market. Despite a rise in capital inflows and trading activity, challenges remain in terms of DeFi activity and the user structure. Therefore, Sui’s performance in the coming months will still be constrained by these factors.
Aptos is also a Layer 1 high-performance public blockchain based on the Move programming language. However, compared to Sui, Aptos retains more of the core concepts from Diem, whereas Sui introduces more modifications. The main difference between the two is that Sui adopts an object-based model, while Aptos uses an account-based model. Additionally, there are some differences in their parallel transaction execution strategies. In summary, Aptos focuses more on modularity and optimization of traditional blockchain structures, while Sui introduces greater architectural innovation.
In terms of performance, according to Chainspect data, Aptos's theoretical maximum TPS (transactions per second) can reach 160,000. In practical operations, the highest recorded TPS is 10,734, and the daily TPS typically remains between 500-1000.
Regarding funding, Aptos announced multiple rounds of financing in 2022. The Series A round was valued at $2.75 billion, with support from top-tier funds such as A16z, Binance Labs, and Coinbase Ventures. On September 19, 2024, MEXC Ventures, Foresight Ventures, and Mirana Ventures launched a fund to support projects being developed within the Aptos ecosystem.
Aptos's mainnet launched on October 17, 2022. After 2024, the TVL (Total Value Locked) began to rise rapidly, increasing more than threefold since the beginning of this year. As of now, it ranks 12th among all public blockchain ecosystems, with a relatively well-developed DeFi (Decentralized Finance) infrastructure. The number of daily active users was high in the first month following the mainnet launch, but the network then experienced a period of stagnation lasting over six months. It wasn't until August 2023 that user activity began to recover. Currently, the number of daily active addresses ranges between 500K to 600K.
APT (Aptos's native token) increased more than twofold after hitting its low on August 5, 2024. However, it is still about twice below its ATH (All-Time High) price. Aptos has not had any major positive news recently. The key developments in the ecosystem include:
On September 19, 2024, MEXC Ventures, Foresight Ventures, and Mirana Ventures launched a fund to support projects within the Aptos ecosystem.
On October 3, 2024, Aptos Labs announced its strategic expansion into the Japanese market by acquiring the developer of the Palette blockchain, HashPalette. This acquisition aims to drive the adoption of Web3 in Japan's entertainment, gaming, and digital asset sectors.
On October 2, 2024, Franklin Templeton expanded its on-chain money market fund to the Aptos network.
On October 28, 2024, the native USDT (Tether) token launched on the Aptos mainnet.
Aptos currently lacks a robust mechanism for native token trading, and there are no active or leading Memecoins. The ecosystem is still in its early stages.
According to the official Aptos website, there are currently 192 projects, far exceeding the number in the Sui ecosystem. According to DeFiLlama data, there are 49 DeFi protocols, which is roughly comparable to the Sui ecosystem. However, the number of projects that have issued tokens within the Aptos ecosystem is relatively small. Among the top 1000 market-cap projects, the only native Aptos token projects are Propbase (a RWA platform) and Thala. Additionally, the token CELL from Cellana ranks only around 1300th in market cap.
Thala: Thala is the leading DEX (Decentralized Exchange) on Aptos, accounting for 50% of the transaction volume on the Aptos blockchain. Its core products include Swap, liquid staking, and over-collateralized stablecoins. Thala's current trading features are relatively simple, with a focus on AMM (Automated Market Maker) trading. Additionally, it offers liquid staking, allowing users to receive the liquidity token thAPT and stake it to earn approximately 8% APR. Thala is also the issuer of MOD, the native stablecoin of the Aptos ecosystem. Users can mint MOD by over-collateralizing APT, thAPT, and sthAPT. In terms of trading volume, Thala has shown the best performance compared to other DEXs (LiquidSwap and Cellana Finance). The primary trading pair contributing to the volume is MOD/zUSDC (LayerZero’s USDC), with a 24-hour trading volume of around $6M, highlighting the empowering effect of MOD stablecoin on Thala. Other high-volume pairs also involve stablecoins, APT, and derivative assets. The THL token launched in June 2023 and is listed on MEXC and Gate exchanges. Most of the trading volume for THL is concentrated on the THL/MOD pair on-chain. The price of THL reached a peak of around $3 in March-April 2024, but it has since retraced to around $0.8.
LiquidSwap: LiquidSwap is the second-largest DEX on Aptos, accounting for 22% of the Aptos blockchain's transaction volume. It is developed by Pontem Network, with the main trading pair being USDC-APT. The 24-hour trading volume is $3M, and the TVL is approximately $20M, which accounts for half of LiquidSwap's total trading volume and TVL.
Cellana Finance: Cellana launched in February 2024 but has already become the DEX with the highest cumulative trading volume on Aptos. From January to October 2024, it maintained a daily trading volume of over $25M, but since October 18, its volume has sharply declined, currently averaging around $2M per day. Previously, its volume mainly came from the swapping of amAPT-APT, but the trading volume for this pair dropped significantly after October 18. Cellana is one of the few protocols on Aptos that has issued a token. Its token, CELL, can be staked to receive veCELL, which grants certain voting rights. These rights determine the distribution of liquidity incentives for the next round of CELL liquidity in different pools. veCELL voters earn 100% of the transaction fees from the liquidity pools they vote for during that period. CELL is currently only available for trading on Cellana, with the CELL-APT pair accounting for 88% of its total trading volume.
Aries Markets: Aries is the largest lending protocol in the Aptos ecosystem and also the DeFi protocol with the highest TVL. The total supply of loans is $664M, with $402M already loaned out. Aries has experienced significant TVL growth over the past two years. The main assets in the protocol include zUSDT, zUSDC, stAPT, and APT, with zUSDT and zUSDC deposits offering an annual yield of 12%, primarily funded by APT subsidies. Aries is one of the primary venues for earning yield with stablecoins on Aptos. In addition to lending, Aries integrates AMM, limit order trading, and cross-chain bridges. Aries has not yet issued a token, but it is running a points program that rewards users for deposits and loans.
Amnis Finance: Amnis is the largest liquid staking protocol on Aptos. Users can deposit 1 APT to receive 1 amAPT, which can then be staked to obtain stAPT and earn staking rewards of approximately 9%. The protocol launched in October 2023, and its TVL has steadily increased, making it the second-largest DeFi protocol by TVL on Aptos. amAPT and stAPT have been widely integrated across the Aptos ecosystem. Starting in November 2023, Amnis introduced a points and retroactive airdrop plan, stating that the points would be directly linked to the airdrop of the AMI token.
Echo Lending: Echo brings BTC assets from the Bsquared Network onto Aptos, introducing BTC into the Move ecosystem and generating multi-layered yields. Specifically, Echo bridges BTC L2's uBTC to Aptos, creating aBTC, which users can lend on the Echo protocol to earn APT subsidy rewards. This allows users to achieve multiple forms of rewards: Bsquared points, Echo points, and APT rewards. Currently, lending aBTC yields an annualized 12% APT subsidy, but the deposit limit has already been reached. Since its launch on Aptos, Echo's TVL has grown rapidly and is currently over $170M, making it the fourth-largest protocol by TVL on Aptos.
Aptos and Sui have different strategic focuses within their ecosystems. Recently, Aptos has placed a strong emphasis on Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization, the Bitcoin ecosystem, and AI.
RWA (Real-World Assets): Aptos is actively pushing forward with the tokenization of real-world assets and institutional finance solutions. In July 2024, Aptos announced the integration of Ondo Finance's USDY into its ecosystem, with integration into major DEXs and lending applications. By November 10, USDY's market cap on Aptos was approximately $15 million, accounting for about 3.5% of the total USDY market cap. In October 2024, Aptos also announced that Franklin Templeton had launched its on-chain U.S. government money market fund (FOBXX), represented by the BENJI token, on the Aptos network. Additionally, Aptos has partnered with Libre to push forward with security tokenization.
Bitcoin Ecosystem (BTCFi): Aptos is actively entering the BTCFi (Bitcoin Finance) space by bringing Bitcoin assets from BTC L2 onto the Aptos ecosystem. This move aims to enhance the diversity of assets on Aptos and increase its Total Value Locked (TVL). In September 2024, Aptos announced a partnership with Stacks to bring sBTC to the Aptos network, although sBTC has yet to be effectively integrated with mainstream DeFi protocols, so the impact of this strategy on Aptos remains to be seen. Additionally, through its Echo protocol, Aptos has partnered with Bsquared Network, with over $170M in BTC assets now integrated into the Aptos ecosystem. Aptos has incentivized cross-chain BTC asset deposits with high APT rewards (12% APR), reflecting the ecosystem's strategic focus on attracting Bitcoin assets. The introduction of Bitcoin assets is expected to boost Aptos's TVL growth and the development potential of DeFi protocols, and it will be important to monitor the TVL of these assets and any changes in Aptos's official incentive programs.
AI (Artificial Intelligence): Aptos is still in the early stages of AI development. In September 2024, Aptos announced a partnership with NVIDIA, Tribe, and the DISG-supported Ignition AI Accelerator to support the growth of AI startups in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
Funding Data: Aptos's TVL and stablecoin market cap have shown a healthy growth trend. TVL in USD terms peaked in early April, but declined due to a significant drop in the price of APT and other ecosystem tokens. However, in terms of APT-denominated TVL, the trend has remained upward. From September 18 to October 22, the USD-denominated TVL doubled, but has since experienced a slight pullback due to a drop in APT's price. APT-denominated TVL grew from 70M APT to 90M APT. The primary reasons for the increase in TVL over the past month are twofold: the rise in APT prices (as APT is the main asset in the ecosystem's TVL) and the launch of Echo Lending, which quickly attracted $14.7M in TVL, making up a significant portion of the $20M growth. As a result, while it may seem that Aptos's TVL has dramatically increased, the contribution to ecosystem liquidity has been limited.
Aptos's ecosystem is dominated by USDC in terms of stablecoins, with the stablecoin market cap increasing steadily from $50M at the start of 2024 to $292.41M now, growing more than fourfold and continuing to trend upwards.
Regarding capital inflows, Aptos has seen net inflows of approximately $3M over the past three months. In the past month, the main sources of funding for Aptos came from Sui, with additional inflows from Solana and Ethereum. The primary destination for outflows has been Moonbeam. In summary, Aptos appears to be in a healthy financial position, with growing ecosystem funds, but there has not yet been a significant trend of attracting capital overflow from other ecosystems, particularly from Ethereum and Solana.
In terms of trading activity, Aptos's DEX trading volume ranks 12th among all public chains. After April 2024, trading volume began to grow significantly and has remained at a relatively high level, with the majority of trades concentrated on Thala and LiquidSwap.
Regarding user growth, Aptos reached its peak daily active users at the end of October, with over 800K daily active wallets. According to DappRadar, the most active applications in the Aptos ecosystem include Kana Labs, Chingari, STAN, KGeN, and ERAGON. However, the most active DeFi infrastructure project, Amnis, only has 6K unique active wallets (UAW), while Kana Labs has over 150K active users. DEX platforms even have only around 1K active users, indicating that Aptos has not yet reached a healthy level of ecosystem development. On-chain transaction activity is very low, and there is limited demand for users to engage in trading or speculation within the Aptos ecosystem. (In comparison, Solana's leading project, Raydium, has over 3M UAW, and Jupiter has 251K UAW, far surpassing other projects.)
The initial token supply of APT was 10 billion, with the distribution ratio and timeline outlined in the chart below. Although 51.02% of the tokens were allocated to the community, these tokens were initially concentrated in the hands of the foundation, with 410,217,359.767 managed by the foundation and 100,000,000 held by Aptos Labs. Of these, 125,000,000 tokens are designated for ecosystem incentives, while the allocation for the rest remains unclear. For core contributors and investors, the tokens are subject to a one-year lock-up period followed by linear unlocking. Currently, the main unlocks are from the community, foundation, investors, and core contributors, with 11.31 million tokens unlocked monthly, resulting in significant selling pressure.
In terms of price performance, APT has been relatively weak against BTC. After a decline at the beginning of 2024, it remained at low levels. However, after a brief rise between September and October 2024, it sharply dropped on October 29, with a small recovery thereafter. It has not yet surpassed its early October highs against BTC, and it still lags significantly behind its peak at the start of this year.
As one of the Move ecosystem's twin stars alongside Sui, Aptos has gained considerable market attention in recent times. The ongoing debate on which project will become the "Solana Killer" continues, and here we summarize the development of the Aptos ecosystem:
TVL Growth: Aptos's TVL has been rising significantly, with positive capital inflows, but these inflows are far smaller than those of Sui.
Early-stage Ecosystem: The Aptos ecosystem is still in its early stages, with a limited number of on-chain assets and no high-market-cap Memecoin, leading to low transaction volume and user activity.
Strategic Focus: Aptos's ecosystem development strategy centers around RWA and BTCFi, aiming to open new capital channels and grow its TVL. It is important to track the market capitalization growth of related assets and integration with Aptos's DeFi applications.
User Base Issues: Similar to Sui, Aptos faces unhealthy user structure issues, with a relatively low number of DeFi users.
Token Economics: APT faces significant unlocking pressures, which may hinder price appreciation. Price performance, in the short term, is weaker compared to Sui, with APT showing a trend of following Sui's price movements.
Sui: Offers extremely high TPS and low transaction latency, focusing on low transaction fees. Sui’s advantage lies in its network performance, especially when processing large amounts of assets concurrently, with parallel execution greatly enhancing throughput. For specific use cases, especially in DeFi, Sui’s performance is exceptional.
Aptos: Although both Sui and Aptos are based on the Move language, Aptos adopts more engineering solutions to enhance scalability and security. Its unique modular architecture allows Aptos to optimize performance and upgradability, showing strong advantages in increasing throughput and scalability.
Sui: Currently, Sui's ecosystem is still in the early stages, lacking mature DeFi applications and high-value NFT projects. However, it is highly innovative, attracting a growing number of developers, with plans to accelerate ecosystem expansion in the coming years.
Aptos: The Aptos ecosystem has experienced significant growth over the past year, especially in RWA tokenization and Bitcoin integration. It has also seen rapid expansion in the stablecoin market. However, its DeFi ecosystem remains relatively underdeveloped.
Sui: Sui's user and developer base is currently dispersed, still in the growth phase, but steadily attracting more developers.
Aptos: Aptos’s user growth is mainly driven by mature Web3 applications and early investors, but its DeFi user base and daily active wallet numbers are not ideal.
Sui: Sui's token economics is relatively healthy, with stable unlocking progress and solid long-term support for ecosystem development.
Aptos: Aptos faces large token unlock volumes, leading to significant selling pressure, which may cause price volatility and impact the stability of its ecosystem.
Sui: Sui’s market trend is relatively strong, with its technological advantages and ecosystem expansion direction receiving increasing attention, despite some fluctuations in trading volume.
Aptos: Aptos has made progress in ecosystem expansion, but its token’s market attention and price performance still lag behind Sui’s.
Overall, Sui currently holds the advantage in market attention and technological performance, with its parallel execution architecture providing significant benefits for high-frequency applications like DeFi. Although its ecosystem is still in early stages, Sui’s potential remains immense as its developer and user base grows. Aptos, on the other hand, demonstrates unique strengths in infrastructure building, particularly in traditional finance and stablecoin markets, along with its integration with Bitcoin. Whether Aptos can make breakthroughs in the DeFi space will determine its market performance in the long run. The competition between the two will be intense, with the winner determined by which can attract more developers and users in the coming years.
The table below compares key data points between the Sui and Aptos ecosystems, as well as the data for their respective major DeFi protocols. Below is a summary of the comparison:
TVL Comparison: There is not much difference between the two ecosystems in terms of TVL. However, SUI’s price increase has recently outpaced APT’s, and the market capitalization of Sui’s ecosystem tokens is higher, which is a major reason for Sui's lead in TVL. Both Sui and Aptos reached new highs in TVL recently, but the increase is largely due to the rise in ecosystem token prices, with organic growth being very limited.
Capital Flow: Sui has seen a continuous inflow of capital, now second only to the Base and Solana ecosystems. Sui has mainly absorbed capital from Ethereum. In contrast, Aptos has seen very limited net inflows, accounting for less than 1% of its capital, with most inflows coming from Sui. This suggests that Sui is currently the main gateway for the Move ecosystem, while Aptos mainly absorbs capital overflow from Sui, with a very weak overflow effect.
On-Chain Activity: Sui’s DEX trading volume is 10 times higher than Aptos, indicating greater transaction activity within the Sui ecosystem. However, in terms of user activity, both ecosystems show low DeFi user engagement. Compared to more mature public chains like Solana, both ecosystems still lack a healthy user structure.
Ecosystem Development: In October, Sui experienced strong growth in both its native token and ecosystem token prices, and actively launched ecosystem projects such as NAVX on Bybit and Cetus on Binance, which increased market attention and opened up new possibilities for the Sui ecosystem. The rally in the native and ecosystem token prices also drove the ecosystem's rapid development in the short term. Aptos, however, lacks core ecosystem tokens besides THL and CELL, and has not developed Memecoin. While APT’s price rose quickly, ecosystem tokens did not see significant increases.
Ecosystem Strategy: Sui attracted some on-chain capital in the short term through Memecoin, but this trend did not last. The long-term focus is on Web3 Gaming. Aptos aims to bring more assets into the ecosystem through RWA and BTCFi, increasing its TVL. Echo has shown strong short-term effects.
Token Unlocking: Both SUI and APT face substantial monthly unlocking pressures. SUI unlocks 64.19 million tokens per month (about $2 million), accounting for 2.32% of the circulating supply. APT unlocks 11.31 million tokens per month (about $1.2 million), accounting for 2.17% of the circulating supply.
from:
https://www.panewslab.com/zh/articledetails/q26rnpr5882s.html
Author: Charlotte
With BTC prices breaking the $89,000 mark, the market has entered a long-awaited bull market atmosphere, with altcoins experiencing significant gains, and several blockchain tokens seeing near-doubling in price. However, the market's recovery has not yet brought about the emergence of mainstream sectors, and currently, there is a lack of a dominant narrative in the market, which may continue for some time. In the absence of a clear narrative, focusing on public chain ecosystems to identify potential Beta and Alpha may be a feasible trading strategy in the near term. Therefore, we have developed an analytical framework to compare and analyze the recent standout performers, Sui and Aptos, within this framework.
The most direct driver for the explosive growth of a public chain will be the large influx of capital. A surge of liquidity entering the ecosystem can accelerate its development, and the wealth effect brought about by liquidity overflow will attract more market attention and capital, further increasing the ecosystem's activity. Therefore, when evaluating a public chain ecosystem, we focus on the factors that could attract significant capital inflows, the ability of the chain to absorb liquidity, and the data metrics that reflect capital and user inflows.
Whether it's ETH during the ICO and NFT boom, SOL during the Memecoin era, or BTC during the inscription period (which was driven by both mining and purchasing to increase demand and consumption), native tokens serve as the primary trading units. When phenomena like NFTs and Memecoins create significant wealth effects, users need to purchase the native token to enter the new "Crypto Casino," thus creating huge native demand for blockchain tokens, driving up prices and fueling ecosystem growth. These large "Casinos" are both part of the ecosystem, directly pushing the growth of public chain tokens through their prosperity, while also attracting significant capital onto the chain. This liquidity overflow will enrich other ecosystem projects, revitalizing the entire ecosystem.
In this regard, public chains and exchanges often conflict, as high-quality projects often conduct their Token Generation Events (TGEs) directly on exchanges, which does not benefit the public chain itself. To create a native token trading environment on the public chain, the ecosystem must rely on new assets that either exist only on the chain or are initially chain-only, such as NFTs, inscriptions, and Memecoins. We will closely monitor the issuance of new wealth-creating assets on different public chains, though we have not yet observed significant innovation in this area. Thus, in the short term, we will focus on which public chain can absorb more liquidity overflow from Solana's Meme sector.
The maturity of infrastructure determines whether capital will stay after entering. A user-friendly experience and diverse capital yield strategies are more likely to help retain both users and capital. Attractive liquidity channels and incentive mechanisms are essential for facilitating capital inflows. There are three main sources of capital: other public chains, centralized exchanges (CEX), and Web2. The friction of capital migration increases as it moves through each layer, and the ability to attract capital from multiple levels will be more beneficial for the public chain's growth.
For example, Base, backed by Coinbase, has bridged the gap between centralized exchanges and the blockchain by allowing a direct entry path from exchanges to the chain. Additionally, the issuance of cbBTC and liquidity mining incentives have attracted more Total Value Locked (TVL) to its ecosystem. Solana is promoting the development of Payment and Payfi sectors, hoping to draw Web2 capital onto the blockchain.
This includes the public chain’s planned development path, primary markets, and core sectors. For example, the Solana team has a very clear development path in this cycle, starting with a strong focus on the Meme sector to attract a large number of users and liquidity. Subsequently, they pushed for the growth of the Payfi and DePIN sectors, leveraging the high-performance capabilities of the blockchain to attract top-tier projects like Render, Grass, and IO.net. In contrast, Ethereum is lacking a clear strategic development direction, and its Rollup-centric roadmap has faced considerable criticism.
TVL (Total Value Locked) in a public chain is often used as a key metric for assessing the ecosystem’s financial scale. However, TVL is mainly composed of the public chain’s token and ecosystem tokens, which are heavily affected by token prices and may not accurately reflect capital inflows. Additionally, platforms like DeFiLlama directly aggregate the TVL from various DeFi protocols, but tokens in circulation are not considered part of the TVL. The circulation of tokens may indicate a stronger demand for trading.
Therefore, this article will focus on metrics such as the growth of stablecoin market capitalization, net capital inflows into the ecosystem, and DEX trading volume as indicators of changes in liquidity, while also tracking user activity levels.
The growth of a public chain ecosystem is generally closely linked to the price of its native token. As the price of the public chain token rises, it attracts more market attention. After a significant increase in token prices, the market will look for investment opportunities within the ecosystem to generate higher returns. This liquidity overflow will further promote ecosystem prosperity and enhance the overall wealth effect within the ecosystem. Tokenomics and the distribution of the token supply will determine the resistance to price increases and the available time window for growth. Tokens with less resistance and greater growth potential are more likely to drive overall ecosystem prosperity.
Sui is a high-performance Layer 1 public blockchain built on the Move programming language, developed by Mysten Labs. In terms of performance, according to data released by the Sui Foundation, Sui’s peak TPS (transactions per second) can reach up to 297,000. In real-world operations, the current peak TPS on Sui is around 800.
Regarding its funding background, Sui completed Series A and Series B rounds, raising a total of $336M, with a Series B valuation of $2B. Its investors include prominent funds such as A16z, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, and others.
Sui's mainnet launched on May 3, 2023. Over the past year and a half, the TVL (Total Value Locked) in the Sui ecosystem has rapidly increased, currently ranking 5th among all public blockchains. It has developed a comprehensive DeFi infrastructure, including DEXs (Decentralized Exchanges), lending protocols, stablecoins, and liquid staking. In the early stages, Sui’s ecosystem did not gain many stable daily active users. However, from May 2024, it began attracting a significant number of users, with daily active users currently stabilizing around 1 million.
SUI’s token price entered a rapid upward phase in September, becoming one of the top-performing crypto assets of the month, significantly outperforming BTC and SOL. Recently, its price has approached previous highs. Along with the price surge, Sui has announced several ecosystem developments:
On September 2, 2024, Sui unveiled the handheld gaming console SuiPlay0X1, which natively supports Sui-based games as well as the Steam and Epic Games libraries. The console is priced at $599 and is expected to ship in 2025.
On September 12, 2024, Grayscale announced the launch of the Grayscale SUI Trust Fund, officially opening it to accredited investors. As of October 8, 2024, the fund’s AUM (Assets Under Management) surpassed $2.7M.
On September 17, 2024, Sui partnered with Circle to expand USDC to the Sui network. By October 8, 2024, native USDC had already launched on the Sui mainnet.
On October 1, 2024, Sui Bridge went live on the mainnet, initially supporting ETH and WETH bridging between Sui and Ethereum, secured by Sui network validators.
The Sui ecosystem hasn't seen many new asset innovations, but the trading of memecoins saw significant activity in early October. Tokens like HIPPO, BLUB, FUD, AAA, and LOOPY performed well, with HIPPO especially creating substantial wealth effects. HIPPO is currently the third-largest token in the Sui ecosystem, just behind CETUS and DEEP. Compared to its lows, HIPPO’s price has increased over 50 times, and after a drop of more than 70% from its peak, it has experienced a major recovery. The enthusiasm for memecoin trading is also reflected in the rapid increase in new token creations. Since mid-September, more than 300 new tokens have been created on Sui daily, with several days in October seeing over 1,000 new tokens, although this figure has since dropped to lower levels.
In terms of memecoin trading infrastructure, Cetus is the main AMM (Automated Market Maker), and trading bots typically use PinkPunkBot. Movepump serves as a memecoin launchpad similar to Pump.fun, where tokens are listed on the BlueMove DEX once liquidity reaches a threshold. This has led to a significant increase in TVL and trading volume data in early October.
According to Sui Directory statistics, there are currently 86 projects in the Sui ecosystem. Excluding infrastructure, the majority are in gaming (23 projects) and DeFi (16 projects). According to CoinGecko data, the market capitalization of Sui ecosystem projects is relatively low. Among the top 500 projects by market cap, only SUI and the recently emerged HIPPO are included. Among the top 1,000 projects, excluding stablecoins, there are only FUD, CETUS, BLUB, and NAVX—meaning there are relatively few investable projects, primarily consisting of memecoins and DeFi leaders.
According to DeFiLlama, there are 40 DeFi protocols in the Sui ecosystem, with the top three being: NAVI Protocol (Lending), Cetus AMM (DEX), and Suilend (Lending). The TVLs of Scallop Lend (Lending) and Aftermath Finance (Trading Aggregator & Liquid Staking) follow closely behind. Other notable protocols include yield aggregator AlphaFi, stablecoin protocol Bucket, and derivatives exchange Bluefin.
NAVI Protocol: The leading lending protocol in the Sui ecosystem, with a TVL of $314.8M, providing a total loan volume of $464.63M, of which $149.83M has been borrowed. The TVL is primarily composed of WUSDC and SUI, as well as SUI-based derivatives. The total WUSDC on the Sui chain is $283.05M, and WUSDC constitutes approximately 30% of NAVI’s TVL. NAVI Protocol is also building Volo, a liquid staking protocol for SUI. The NAVX token has performed well, increasing more than 6 times from a low of $0.003 on August 5 to $0.19 at present. NAVX was listed on Bybit and launched on Launchpool on October 4.
Suilend: The second-largest lending protocol on Sui, with a total loan volume of $227.58M and a borrowed amount of $57.69M. Its TVL is primarily composed of SUI and WUSDC, similar to NAVI Protocol, though it has not yet introduced SUI-based derivatives. This project is developed by the team behind Solend, which allows for the staking of SOL in the Sui ecosystem. Both Suilend and NAVI Protocol incentivize lending activities with SUI or SUI derivatives, with Suilend using SUI and NAVI using vSUI. In May 2024, Suilend launched a reward program for users who deposit assets into the platform.
Web3 Gaming has always been a crucial part of the Sui ecosystem's strategy. The Move programming language used by Sui employs an object-oriented architecture, making objects the basic unit of data storage rather than the account-based model used by other blockchains. This enables the definition of more complex and composable on-chain game assets. Additionally, Sui’s scalability and features such as zkLogin provide a Web2-like gaming experience for users.
In the early stages of the Sui ecosystem’s development, its flagship game, Abyss World, garnered significant market attention, with backing from AMD and Epic Games. On June 24, 2023, Japan’s social gaming giant announced it would become a validator node and develop games on the Sui network. On September 22, 2023, South Korean game developer NHN was reported to be developing blockchain games on Sui. On September 28, 2023, Sui launched the Web3 game portal Play Beyond, allowing users to explore Sui-based games in one place. However, due to the underperformance of blockchain gaming in this cycle, Sui has not yet produced any breakout games. Data shows that while gaming and social projects were the main sources of Sui users in 2023, the ecosystem has entered a quieter phase in 2024.
Recently, Sui’s ecosystem has been ramping up efforts across various areas, with a strategic focus that mirrors the early days of Solana: the price of the SUI token is rising rapidly, meme tokens are creating wealth effects, ecosystem tokens are soaring, and several positive developments—such as Grayscale launching the Sui Trust Fund, native USDC entering the Sui ecosystem, and ecosystem tokens listing on core CEXs—have quickly captured market attention. These efforts have fueled comparisons to a “Solana Killer.” Sui’s ecosystem still places a heavy emphasis on gaming, evidenced by the launch of SuiPlay0X1 and promotional materials from Grayscale about Sui-based games.
Additionally, the South Korean market has shown strong interest in Sui, with SUI token trading volume ranking highly on Upbit. In terms of SUI token spot trading volume, Upbit ranks just behind Binance, highlighting the importance of the South Korean market to the Sui ecosystem.
The TVL (Total Value Locked) in the Sui ecosystem has grown rapidly since August 5, increasing from around $300 million at its lowest point to over $1 billion. However, since the TVL is mainly composed of SUI and ecosystem tokens, this figure does not accurately reflect the real influx of funds into the Sui ecosystem.
A more accurate indicator may be the market cap of stablecoins and the flow of funds. Currently, the stablecoin market cap in the Sui ecosystem is approximately $380 million. After August 6, the stablecoin market cap increased to $437 million but quickly declined thereafter. Looking at the capital inflows, Sui has had positive net inflows in both the past month and past three months, ranking third among all public blockchain ecosystems in terms of fund inflows, indicating a healthy capital flow. When examining the sources of capital inflows and outflows, Ethereum is the primary origin for both.
In terms of trading activity, the DEX (Decentralized Exchange) volume in Sui ranks 6th among all blockchain ecosystems. Since September, trading volume has seen a significant recovery, now exceeding the peak levels of March-April, with daily trading volume surpassing $200 million. Cetus, the main AMM (Automated Market Maker) on Sui, contributes over 85% of the trading volume, with the main trading pairs being SUI-USDC, SUI-wUSDC, HIPPO-SUI, and CETUS-SUI.
The total number of active users in the Sui ecosystem has risen, but the activity is mainly concentrated in the Social sector, with popular dApps (decentralized applications) like RECRD, BIRDS, and FanTv. However, these dApps have not seen a corresponding increase in market discussions, leaving the question of how many real users they have still uncertain. After excluding the Social sector and the Other sector where BIRDS belongs, the user activity in Sui’s ecosystem has not significantly increased. Specifically, the daily active wallets in the DeFi sector are only between 1,000 and 5,000. In comparison to DeFi-centric ecosystems like Ethereum and Solana, the DeFi activity in Sui is relatively weak, and the user structure is not yet healthy. The true number of active users remains a point of doubt.
October 2024 witnessed a surge in memecoin activity within the Sui ecosystem, with daily active user peaks surpassing 50,000. However, this craze was short-lived, and meme-related activity has since declined significantly, reaching new lows.
The flow of SUI tokens within the system is illustrated in the diagram below. Sui has a Storage Fund, which collects a portion of the Storage fees paid by users and part of the Stake Rewards. The fund flow for each Epoch is as follows:
Users submit transactions and pay the corresponding Computation fees and Storage fees, with the Storage fees directly entering the Storage Fund.
New SUI token inflation and Computation fees together make up the Stake rewards.
The total staking amount for each round consists of two parts: the user's stake α% and the Storage Fund’s portion (1-α)%.
The γα proportion of the Stake rewards is distributed to stakers and delegated stakers.
The remaining * (1-γ)(1-α) * of the Stake rewards is transferred to the Storage Fund.
If a user deletes stored data, the Storage Fund will return part of the storage fees to the user.
As a result, in the early stages of the Sui ecosystem's development, the Storage Fund did not have any outflows other than the refund for deleted data, creating a token locking mechanism. When the locked portion exceeds the token inflation, the SUI token enters a deflationary mode.
Regarding token distribution, the total supply of SUI is 10 billion, and the token unlock schedule was disclosed by Sui on June 29, 2023, as shown in the diagram below. According to the Token Unlock data, the SUI token distribution is represented in the pie chart. As of now, the circulating supply of SUI is 2,763,841,372.61, accounting for 27.64%. Currently, the main inflationary pressure on SUI comes from staking rewards and token unlocking. Starting from April 2024, tokens for investors, early contributors, and the team began to unlock monthly. On November 1, 2024, a total of 64.19 million SUI tokens were unlocked, accounting for 2.32% of the circulating supply. Ongoing token unlocking and inflation could pose a pressure point for the price of SUI.
From a price performance perspective, the SUI to BTC exchange rate has been very strong. After dropping to a low point on October 29, it quickly rebounded and continued to rise after a period of adjustment. After November 9, the price surged dramatically, breaking the highs seen earlier this year.
In the past month, there has been a significant increase in market attention toward the Sui ecosystem, mainly driven by the wealth effects of SUI and its ecosystem tokens. We can observe that Sui and its ecosystem are forming synergy by quickly attracting market attention through price surges and positive news releases. At the same time, Sui continues to prioritize gaming as one of the main pillars of its ecosystem and has made significant strides in the South Korean market. Despite a rise in capital inflows and trading activity, challenges remain in terms of DeFi activity and the user structure. Therefore, Sui’s performance in the coming months will still be constrained by these factors.
Aptos is also a Layer 1 high-performance public blockchain based on the Move programming language. However, compared to Sui, Aptos retains more of the core concepts from Diem, whereas Sui introduces more modifications. The main difference between the two is that Sui adopts an object-based model, while Aptos uses an account-based model. Additionally, there are some differences in their parallel transaction execution strategies. In summary, Aptos focuses more on modularity and optimization of traditional blockchain structures, while Sui introduces greater architectural innovation.
In terms of performance, according to Chainspect data, Aptos's theoretical maximum TPS (transactions per second) can reach 160,000. In practical operations, the highest recorded TPS is 10,734, and the daily TPS typically remains between 500-1000.
Regarding funding, Aptos announced multiple rounds of financing in 2022. The Series A round was valued at $2.75 billion, with support from top-tier funds such as A16z, Binance Labs, and Coinbase Ventures. On September 19, 2024, MEXC Ventures, Foresight Ventures, and Mirana Ventures launched a fund to support projects being developed within the Aptos ecosystem.
Aptos's mainnet launched on October 17, 2022. After 2024, the TVL (Total Value Locked) began to rise rapidly, increasing more than threefold since the beginning of this year. As of now, it ranks 12th among all public blockchain ecosystems, with a relatively well-developed DeFi (Decentralized Finance) infrastructure. The number of daily active users was high in the first month following the mainnet launch, but the network then experienced a period of stagnation lasting over six months. It wasn't until August 2023 that user activity began to recover. Currently, the number of daily active addresses ranges between 500K to 600K.
APT (Aptos's native token) increased more than twofold after hitting its low on August 5, 2024. However, it is still about twice below its ATH (All-Time High) price. Aptos has not had any major positive news recently. The key developments in the ecosystem include:
On September 19, 2024, MEXC Ventures, Foresight Ventures, and Mirana Ventures launched a fund to support projects within the Aptos ecosystem.
On October 3, 2024, Aptos Labs announced its strategic expansion into the Japanese market by acquiring the developer of the Palette blockchain, HashPalette. This acquisition aims to drive the adoption of Web3 in Japan's entertainment, gaming, and digital asset sectors.
On October 2, 2024, Franklin Templeton expanded its on-chain money market fund to the Aptos network.
On October 28, 2024, the native USDT (Tether) token launched on the Aptos mainnet.
Aptos currently lacks a robust mechanism for native token trading, and there are no active or leading Memecoins. The ecosystem is still in its early stages.
According to the official Aptos website, there are currently 192 projects, far exceeding the number in the Sui ecosystem. According to DeFiLlama data, there are 49 DeFi protocols, which is roughly comparable to the Sui ecosystem. However, the number of projects that have issued tokens within the Aptos ecosystem is relatively small. Among the top 1000 market-cap projects, the only native Aptos token projects are Propbase (a RWA platform) and Thala. Additionally, the token CELL from Cellana ranks only around 1300th in market cap.
Thala: Thala is the leading DEX (Decentralized Exchange) on Aptos, accounting for 50% of the transaction volume on the Aptos blockchain. Its core products include Swap, liquid staking, and over-collateralized stablecoins. Thala's current trading features are relatively simple, with a focus on AMM (Automated Market Maker) trading. Additionally, it offers liquid staking, allowing users to receive the liquidity token thAPT and stake it to earn approximately 8% APR. Thala is also the issuer of MOD, the native stablecoin of the Aptos ecosystem. Users can mint MOD by over-collateralizing APT, thAPT, and sthAPT. In terms of trading volume, Thala has shown the best performance compared to other DEXs (LiquidSwap and Cellana Finance). The primary trading pair contributing to the volume is MOD/zUSDC (LayerZero’s USDC), with a 24-hour trading volume of around $6M, highlighting the empowering effect of MOD stablecoin on Thala. Other high-volume pairs also involve stablecoins, APT, and derivative assets. The THL token launched in June 2023 and is listed on MEXC and Gate exchanges. Most of the trading volume for THL is concentrated on the THL/MOD pair on-chain. The price of THL reached a peak of around $3 in March-April 2024, but it has since retraced to around $0.8.
LiquidSwap: LiquidSwap is the second-largest DEX on Aptos, accounting for 22% of the Aptos blockchain's transaction volume. It is developed by Pontem Network, with the main trading pair being USDC-APT. The 24-hour trading volume is $3M, and the TVL is approximately $20M, which accounts for half of LiquidSwap's total trading volume and TVL.
Cellana Finance: Cellana launched in February 2024 but has already become the DEX with the highest cumulative trading volume on Aptos. From January to October 2024, it maintained a daily trading volume of over $25M, but since October 18, its volume has sharply declined, currently averaging around $2M per day. Previously, its volume mainly came from the swapping of amAPT-APT, but the trading volume for this pair dropped significantly after October 18. Cellana is one of the few protocols on Aptos that has issued a token. Its token, CELL, can be staked to receive veCELL, which grants certain voting rights. These rights determine the distribution of liquidity incentives for the next round of CELL liquidity in different pools. veCELL voters earn 100% of the transaction fees from the liquidity pools they vote for during that period. CELL is currently only available for trading on Cellana, with the CELL-APT pair accounting for 88% of its total trading volume.
Aries Markets: Aries is the largest lending protocol in the Aptos ecosystem and also the DeFi protocol with the highest TVL. The total supply of loans is $664M, with $402M already loaned out. Aries has experienced significant TVL growth over the past two years. The main assets in the protocol include zUSDT, zUSDC, stAPT, and APT, with zUSDT and zUSDC deposits offering an annual yield of 12%, primarily funded by APT subsidies. Aries is one of the primary venues for earning yield with stablecoins on Aptos. In addition to lending, Aries integrates AMM, limit order trading, and cross-chain bridges. Aries has not yet issued a token, but it is running a points program that rewards users for deposits and loans.
Amnis Finance: Amnis is the largest liquid staking protocol on Aptos. Users can deposit 1 APT to receive 1 amAPT, which can then be staked to obtain stAPT and earn staking rewards of approximately 9%. The protocol launched in October 2023, and its TVL has steadily increased, making it the second-largest DeFi protocol by TVL on Aptos. amAPT and stAPT have been widely integrated across the Aptos ecosystem. Starting in November 2023, Amnis introduced a points and retroactive airdrop plan, stating that the points would be directly linked to the airdrop of the AMI token.
Echo Lending: Echo brings BTC assets from the Bsquared Network onto Aptos, introducing BTC into the Move ecosystem and generating multi-layered yields. Specifically, Echo bridges BTC L2's uBTC to Aptos, creating aBTC, which users can lend on the Echo protocol to earn APT subsidy rewards. This allows users to achieve multiple forms of rewards: Bsquared points, Echo points, and APT rewards. Currently, lending aBTC yields an annualized 12% APT subsidy, but the deposit limit has already been reached. Since its launch on Aptos, Echo's TVL has grown rapidly and is currently over $170M, making it the fourth-largest protocol by TVL on Aptos.
Aptos and Sui have different strategic focuses within their ecosystems. Recently, Aptos has placed a strong emphasis on Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization, the Bitcoin ecosystem, and AI.
RWA (Real-World Assets): Aptos is actively pushing forward with the tokenization of real-world assets and institutional finance solutions. In July 2024, Aptos announced the integration of Ondo Finance's USDY into its ecosystem, with integration into major DEXs and lending applications. By November 10, USDY's market cap on Aptos was approximately $15 million, accounting for about 3.5% of the total USDY market cap. In October 2024, Aptos also announced that Franklin Templeton had launched its on-chain U.S. government money market fund (FOBXX), represented by the BENJI token, on the Aptos network. Additionally, Aptos has partnered with Libre to push forward with security tokenization.
Bitcoin Ecosystem (BTCFi): Aptos is actively entering the BTCFi (Bitcoin Finance) space by bringing Bitcoin assets from BTC L2 onto the Aptos ecosystem. This move aims to enhance the diversity of assets on Aptos and increase its Total Value Locked (TVL). In September 2024, Aptos announced a partnership with Stacks to bring sBTC to the Aptos network, although sBTC has yet to be effectively integrated with mainstream DeFi protocols, so the impact of this strategy on Aptos remains to be seen. Additionally, through its Echo protocol, Aptos has partnered with Bsquared Network, with over $170M in BTC assets now integrated into the Aptos ecosystem. Aptos has incentivized cross-chain BTC asset deposits with high APT rewards (12% APR), reflecting the ecosystem's strategic focus on attracting Bitcoin assets. The introduction of Bitcoin assets is expected to boost Aptos's TVL growth and the development potential of DeFi protocols, and it will be important to monitor the TVL of these assets and any changes in Aptos's official incentive programs.
AI (Artificial Intelligence): Aptos is still in the early stages of AI development. In September 2024, Aptos announced a partnership with NVIDIA, Tribe, and the DISG-supported Ignition AI Accelerator to support the growth of AI startups in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
Funding Data: Aptos's TVL and stablecoin market cap have shown a healthy growth trend. TVL in USD terms peaked in early April, but declined due to a significant drop in the price of APT and other ecosystem tokens. However, in terms of APT-denominated TVL, the trend has remained upward. From September 18 to October 22, the USD-denominated TVL doubled, but has since experienced a slight pullback due to a drop in APT's price. APT-denominated TVL grew from 70M APT to 90M APT. The primary reasons for the increase in TVL over the past month are twofold: the rise in APT prices (as APT is the main asset in the ecosystem's TVL) and the launch of Echo Lending, which quickly attracted $14.7M in TVL, making up a significant portion of the $20M growth. As a result, while it may seem that Aptos's TVL has dramatically increased, the contribution to ecosystem liquidity has been limited.
Aptos's ecosystem is dominated by USDC in terms of stablecoins, with the stablecoin market cap increasing steadily from $50M at the start of 2024 to $292.41M now, growing more than fourfold and continuing to trend upwards.
Regarding capital inflows, Aptos has seen net inflows of approximately $3M over the past three months. In the past month, the main sources of funding for Aptos came from Sui, with additional inflows from Solana and Ethereum. The primary destination for outflows has been Moonbeam. In summary, Aptos appears to be in a healthy financial position, with growing ecosystem funds, but there has not yet been a significant trend of attracting capital overflow from other ecosystems, particularly from Ethereum and Solana.
In terms of trading activity, Aptos's DEX trading volume ranks 12th among all public chains. After April 2024, trading volume began to grow significantly and has remained at a relatively high level, with the majority of trades concentrated on Thala and LiquidSwap.
Regarding user growth, Aptos reached its peak daily active users at the end of October, with over 800K daily active wallets. According to DappRadar, the most active applications in the Aptos ecosystem include Kana Labs, Chingari, STAN, KGeN, and ERAGON. However, the most active DeFi infrastructure project, Amnis, only has 6K unique active wallets (UAW), while Kana Labs has over 150K active users. DEX platforms even have only around 1K active users, indicating that Aptos has not yet reached a healthy level of ecosystem development. On-chain transaction activity is very low, and there is limited demand for users to engage in trading or speculation within the Aptos ecosystem. (In comparison, Solana's leading project, Raydium, has over 3M UAW, and Jupiter has 251K UAW, far surpassing other projects.)
The initial token supply of APT was 10 billion, with the distribution ratio and timeline outlined in the chart below. Although 51.02% of the tokens were allocated to the community, these tokens were initially concentrated in the hands of the foundation, with 410,217,359.767 managed by the foundation and 100,000,000 held by Aptos Labs. Of these, 125,000,000 tokens are designated for ecosystem incentives, while the allocation for the rest remains unclear. For core contributors and investors, the tokens are subject to a one-year lock-up period followed by linear unlocking. Currently, the main unlocks are from the community, foundation, investors, and core contributors, with 11.31 million tokens unlocked monthly, resulting in significant selling pressure.
In terms of price performance, APT has been relatively weak against BTC. After a decline at the beginning of 2024, it remained at low levels. However, after a brief rise between September and October 2024, it sharply dropped on October 29, with a small recovery thereafter. It has not yet surpassed its early October highs against BTC, and it still lags significantly behind its peak at the start of this year.
As one of the Move ecosystem's twin stars alongside Sui, Aptos has gained considerable market attention in recent times. The ongoing debate on which project will become the "Solana Killer" continues, and here we summarize the development of the Aptos ecosystem:
TVL Growth: Aptos's TVL has been rising significantly, with positive capital inflows, but these inflows are far smaller than those of Sui.
Early-stage Ecosystem: The Aptos ecosystem is still in its early stages, with a limited number of on-chain assets and no high-market-cap Memecoin, leading to low transaction volume and user activity.
Strategic Focus: Aptos's ecosystem development strategy centers around RWA and BTCFi, aiming to open new capital channels and grow its TVL. It is important to track the market capitalization growth of related assets and integration with Aptos's DeFi applications.
User Base Issues: Similar to Sui, Aptos faces unhealthy user structure issues, with a relatively low number of DeFi users.
Token Economics: APT faces significant unlocking pressures, which may hinder price appreciation. Price performance, in the short term, is weaker compared to Sui, with APT showing a trend of following Sui's price movements.
Sui: Offers extremely high TPS and low transaction latency, focusing on low transaction fees. Sui’s advantage lies in its network performance, especially when processing large amounts of assets concurrently, with parallel execution greatly enhancing throughput. For specific use cases, especially in DeFi, Sui’s performance is exceptional.
Aptos: Although both Sui and Aptos are based on the Move language, Aptos adopts more engineering solutions to enhance scalability and security. Its unique modular architecture allows Aptos to optimize performance and upgradability, showing strong advantages in increasing throughput and scalability.
Sui: Currently, Sui's ecosystem is still in the early stages, lacking mature DeFi applications and high-value NFT projects. However, it is highly innovative, attracting a growing number of developers, with plans to accelerate ecosystem expansion in the coming years.
Aptos: The Aptos ecosystem has experienced significant growth over the past year, especially in RWA tokenization and Bitcoin integration. It has also seen rapid expansion in the stablecoin market. However, its DeFi ecosystem remains relatively underdeveloped.
Sui: Sui's user and developer base is currently dispersed, still in the growth phase, but steadily attracting more developers.
Aptos: Aptos’s user growth is mainly driven by mature Web3 applications and early investors, but its DeFi user base and daily active wallet numbers are not ideal.
Sui: Sui's token economics is relatively healthy, with stable unlocking progress and solid long-term support for ecosystem development.
Aptos: Aptos faces large token unlock volumes, leading to significant selling pressure, which may cause price volatility and impact the stability of its ecosystem.
Sui: Sui’s market trend is relatively strong, with its technological advantages and ecosystem expansion direction receiving increasing attention, despite some fluctuations in trading volume.
Aptos: Aptos has made progress in ecosystem expansion, but its token’s market attention and price performance still lag behind Sui’s.
Overall, Sui currently holds the advantage in market attention and technological performance, with its parallel execution architecture providing significant benefits for high-frequency applications like DeFi. Although its ecosystem is still in early stages, Sui’s potential remains immense as its developer and user base grows. Aptos, on the other hand, demonstrates unique strengths in infrastructure building, particularly in traditional finance and stablecoin markets, along with its integration with Bitcoin. Whether Aptos can make breakthroughs in the DeFi space will determine its market performance in the long run. The competition between the two will be intense, with the winner determined by which can attract more developers and users in the coming years.
The table below compares key data points between the Sui and Aptos ecosystems, as well as the data for their respective major DeFi protocols. Below is a summary of the comparison:
TVL Comparison: There is not much difference between the two ecosystems in terms of TVL. However, SUI’s price increase has recently outpaced APT’s, and the market capitalization of Sui’s ecosystem tokens is higher, which is a major reason for Sui's lead in TVL. Both Sui and Aptos reached new highs in TVL recently, but the increase is largely due to the rise in ecosystem token prices, with organic growth being very limited.
Capital Flow: Sui has seen a continuous inflow of capital, now second only to the Base and Solana ecosystems. Sui has mainly absorbed capital from Ethereum. In contrast, Aptos has seen very limited net inflows, accounting for less than 1% of its capital, with most inflows coming from Sui. This suggests that Sui is currently the main gateway for the Move ecosystem, while Aptos mainly absorbs capital overflow from Sui, with a very weak overflow effect.
On-Chain Activity: Sui’s DEX trading volume is 10 times higher than Aptos, indicating greater transaction activity within the Sui ecosystem. However, in terms of user activity, both ecosystems show low DeFi user engagement. Compared to more mature public chains like Solana, both ecosystems still lack a healthy user structure.
Ecosystem Development: In October, Sui experienced strong growth in both its native token and ecosystem token prices, and actively launched ecosystem projects such as NAVX on Bybit and Cetus on Binance, which increased market attention and opened up new possibilities for the Sui ecosystem. The rally in the native and ecosystem token prices also drove the ecosystem's rapid development in the short term. Aptos, however, lacks core ecosystem tokens besides THL and CELL, and has not developed Memecoin. While APT’s price rose quickly, ecosystem tokens did not see significant increases.
Ecosystem Strategy: Sui attracted some on-chain capital in the short term through Memecoin, but this trend did not last. The long-term focus is on Web3 Gaming. Aptos aims to bring more assets into the ecosystem through RWA and BTCFi, increasing its TVL. Echo has shown strong short-term effects.
Token Unlocking: Both SUI and APT face substantial monthly unlocking pressures. SUI unlocks 64.19 million tokens per month (about $2 million), accounting for 2.32% of the circulating supply. APT unlocks 11.31 million tokens per month (about $1.2 million), accounting for 2.17% of the circulating supply.
Price Trends: During this election period, SUI’s price momentum has been stronger, quickly surpassing its previous high and even breaking the high of its BTC exchange rate from earlier this year. In contrast, APT has been sluggish, not yet reaching the BTC exchange rate level it had in late October.
Price Trends: During this election period, SUI’s price momentum has been stronger, quickly surpassing its previous high and even breaking the high of its BTC exchange rate from earlier this year. In contrast, APT has been sluggish, not yet reaching the BTC exchange rate level it had in late October.
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