After three years at Mainnet, Aptos still occupies an unusual position in the blockchain ecosystem. Born from Meta’s abandoned weight project with support from Top-Tier VCS, it entered the market with high expectations and even higher valuation.

Aptos is known as a high flow, relatively inexpensive chain, built on the moving programming language for improved security. Although its technical capabilities are undeniable, the project’s path to widespread adoption remains less secure in an industry where the gap between technical superiority and actually use often seems unbreakable.

Ash Pampati is a speaker in Consensus 2025, which takes place in Toronto 14-16. May.

I sat down with Ash Pampati, the head of the ecosystem of Aptos, to discuss how the project navigates in these challenges, what sets it apart from competitors and whether its institutional DNA is a help or obstacle in today’s market.

Before coming to Aptos as head of the ecosystem, Ash Pampati was business leader at Metaplex Studios on Solana and spent seven years on YouTube -leading music industry partnerships. The YouTube-to-blockchain experience informs his approach to Aptos’ adoption.

“Our overall dissertation is that all the assets of the world come on the chain,” he said.

This interview has been condensed and easily edited for clarity.

Coindesk: I have noticed that Aptos developed against a more grassroots building culture. What did this shift run?

Pampati: The barely resource in web3, except for time, is talented developers. All ecosystems compete for developers with good ideas that are motivated to send against all odds.

The community building strategy begins with a basic question: How do we convince a developer not only about choosing aptos over other chains, but choosing web3 rather than web2?

Your developer search in Southeast Asia has been remarkable. Is this a strategic focus because these markets are more susceptible or because established developers have already committed to other chains?

We have built fantastic grassroots with talented students all over the world – California, UK, Singapore, India, Hong Kong. We show them the value of web3 and how a consumer -oriented, high performance chain like Aptos can help them start DAPPs in a week if they have ideas and infrastructure ready.

When you do well, be ready to invest in talented and motivated people right away. We have a meaningful but effective grant program where we coach people through accelerators, invest directly from the foundation or connect them with investors who share complementary visions.

Solana was facing similar technical promises, but then its ecosystem dominated by pump.Fun and $ speed and $ dawg, and yes, name it. With your institutional approach, Aptos risks the opposite problem – impressive technology, but not much speculation?

For aptos, we do not have the luggage that is better or worse, of the meme -coin madness that adds assumptions about our identity. We believe that tokens and tokenized assets allow companies to emerge that otherwise could not on any other market, and they give users access to companies they would not otherwise have.

Do I think 60,000 tokens should show up daily at Aptos? Not necessarily. But do I want a consistent flow of quality projects that use tokens to customize their community or build products? Absolutely. These are the kind of builders we want to attract.

What strategic areas are focusing on now?

We have three core focus areas that help us overcome adoption challenges. First, active docking. Our overall thesis is that all the assets of the world come on the chain. We see this convergence now with RWAs, institutional interest that converters with native defi, tokenized cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. We want to build a network that enables the global trading engine of these assets.

The second area is payments that utilize Apto’s technical benefits. We have integrated the top three stableecoins on aptos in just three months and reach about a billion dollars in total market capital. APTOS is cheaper orders cheaper from a transaction cost base-with a factor of a thousand-compound with the next high-throughput blockchain. We also have the fastest finality at speeds during seconds.

Our third focus involves decentralized infrastructure that supports new technologies. With easy improvements over and below you can lock capacities around storage and calculate never seen with previous blockchains. This enables running AI and ML infrastructure on full decentralized networks, helping with data discovery for banks and developing content delivery framework.

Your examples often focus on institutional use cases. Is there an interruption between Aptos’ vision and where the market is actually today?

Our PACT protocol exemplifies what we want the next five years to look like. It uses on-chain rails on a high-throughput blockchain with stablecoin integration to extend credit networks to people in markets who never had access to credit.

For example, a Rickshaw driver in India who needs a loan to fix their vehicle can now get one. Democratization of access to financial markets gives me goosebumps and I will further accelerate this.

Within Defi, which has had the product market, fits more cycles and is groundbreaking within Ethereum and EVM L2 communities, we explore how a healthy defi ecosystem looks on a high-throughput blockchain that abstracts much of the web3 friction.

Can my dad, a doctor in Kentucky, who stores all his passwords on the notepads, park some stablecoins in a reliable place to earn benefits and participate in the on-chain economy with limited friction? Not having to save a pasky while still taking advantage of decentralization and self -insurance? It is very exciting for us to make it easier for people to board and make money in the economy of the chain.

We are in a period when many crypto projects have come under their promises. What keeps you sure that Aptos can succeed where others have fought?

When we speak widely to founders: The macroeconomic environment is uncertain and there will always be volatility in this market. But foundations like ours and others remain focused on the goal and are willing to invest in people to continue the mission. My biggest fear is talented people who leave web3 in more stable environments. Everything we can do to keep talented people to continue the mission with decentralized networks, self-insurance and origin, we need to do it-not only from our part, but from any foundation or ecosystem.

We have to keep people building or otherwise we will never see the revolution in the world we will see on a schedule that matters. We should not take progress for granted. It requires work to keep people building for the future.