1-on-1 with Aptos Co-Founder Avery Ching
Speakers
Avery Ching
— Co-founder and CEO, Aptos Labs
Gareth Jenkinson
— Host & Head of Multimedia, The Block
Summary
The Block's Gareth Jenkinson interviews Aptos co-founder and CEO Avery Ching. Avery discusses Aptos's positioning for AI-blockchain convergence, the Decibel DEX versus Hyperliquid, the Open USD stablecoin consortium, AI-powered security, quantum readiness, privacy, and enterprise tokenization. The main market implication is that Aptos is building differentiated infrastructure across trading, stablecoins, confidential AI and tokenization.
- Host briefing covers Bitcoin above $70,000, ETF inflows, Hyperliquid and CFTC news, stablecoin regulation, and Nethermind shifting to Chainlink.
- Avery says AI costs are falling and agent adoption is still very early, making blockchain a key trust and payment layer.
- Aptos has committed roughly $50 million to AI, trading, tokenization and payment infrastructure.
- Decibel is positioned as an open-source, composable and compliance-friendly alternative to Hyperliquid.
- Open USD is presented as a consortium stablecoin that passes revenue back to distribution partners.
- Aptos uses AI and the Move language for security and is quantum-ready with opt-in post-quantum signatures.
- Decibel can enable delta-neutral Bitcoin funding-rate yield products, while large-institution tokenization interest favors Aptos.
Ideas
AI-blockchain convergence favors Aptos.
AI models are becoming dramatically cheaper and more capable, driving agents from coding into legal, media, HR and eventually large-scale agent-to-agent commerce. Blockchain is the missing trust, auditability and payment layer for this shift, and Aptos is explicitly focused on capturing the AI-blockchain convergence with confidential AI and immutable records.
Decibel open-source edge over Hyperliquid.
Decibel is differentiated from Hyperliquid because it is open-source and smart-contract-native, fully decentralized, compliance-friendly, has a completely visible order book, and is composable enough to atomically combine spot and perps trades. Hyperliquid is closed-source, standalone, and relies more on security by obscurity.
Decibel open-source edge over Hyperliquid.
Decibel is differentiated from Hyperliquid because it is open-source and smart-contract-native, fully decentralized, compliance-friendly, has a completely visible order book, and is composable enough to atomically combine spot and perps trades. Hyperliquid is closed-source, standalone, and relies more on security by obscurity.
Open USD revenue-sharing carve-out.
Open USD is a consortium-based stablecoin that passes nearly all revenue back to distribution partners, reducing the need for firms to issue their own stablecoins and creating a new yield-sharing model distinct from Tether and Circle. Avery expects Open USD to carve out its own adoption path.
Bitcoin delta-neutral yield via Decibel.
Decibel's composability enables delta-neutral Bitcoin trades, long spot and short perps atomically, generating 6-8% yield from funding rates safely above Treasury yields, as long as Bitcoin psychology remains structurally long-biased.
