After three years on mainnet, Aptos still occupies an unusual position in the blockchain ecosystem. Born from Meta’s abandoned Libra project with backing from top-tier VCs, it entered the market with high expectations and even higher valuations.

Aptos is known as a high-throughput, relatively cheap chain, built on the Move programming language for enhanced security. Yet while its technical capabilities are undeniable, the project’s path to widespread adoption remains less certain in an industry where the gap between technical superiority and actual usage often seems unbridgeable.

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

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

Before joining Aptos as Head of Ecosystem, Ash Pampati was Business Lead at Metaplex Studios on Solana and spent seven years at YouTube leading music industry partnerships. The YouTube-to-blockchain experience informs his approach to Aptos’s adoption.

«Our overarching thesis is that all the world’s assets will come on-chain,» he said.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

CoinDesk: I’ve noticed Aptos evolving toward a more grassroots builder culture. What drove this shift?

Pampati: The scarcest resource in Web3, aside from time, is talented developers. All ecosystems are competing for developers with great ideas who are motivated to ship against all odds.

The community-building strategy begins with a fundamental question: How do we convince a developer not only to choose Aptos over other chains but to choose Web3 over Web2?

Your developer outreach in Southeast Asia has been notable. Is this a strategic focus because those markets are more receptive, or because established developers have already committed to other chains?

We’ve built amazing grassroots relationships with talented students worldwide — California, U.K., Singapore, India, Hong Kong. We’re showing them the value of Web3 and how a consumer-oriented, high-performance chain like Aptos can help them launch DApps in a week if they have the ideas and infrastructure ready.

When you do that well, you must be ready to invest in talented and motivated people immediately. We have an opinionated but effective grants program where we coach people through accelerators, invest directly from the foundation, or connect them with investors who share complementary visions.

Solana faced similar technical promises but saw its ecosystem dominated by pump.fun and $fart and $dawg, and, well, you name it. With your institutional approach, does Aptos risk the opposite problem — impressive technology but not a lot of speculation?

For Aptos, we don’t have that baggage, for better or worse, of the meme coin frenzy adding assumptions about our identity. We believe tokens and tokenized assets enable businesses to emerge that otherwise couldn’t in any other market, and they allow users entry into businesses they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Do I believe 60,000 tokens should emerge daily on Aptos? Not necessarily. But do I want a consistent stream of quality projects using tokens to align their communities or build products? Absolutely. Those are the kinds of builders we want to attract.

What strategic areas is Aptos focusing on now?

We have three core focus areas that help us overcome adoption challenges. First, asset tokenization. Our overarching thesis is that all the world’s assets will come on-chain. We’re seeing that convergence now with RWAs, institutional interest converging 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, which leverages Aptos’s technical advantages. We’ve integrated the top three stablecoins on Aptos in just three months, reaching about a billion dollars in total market cap. Aptos is orders of magnitude cheaper from a transaction cost basis — by a factor of a thousand — compared to the next high-throughput blockchain. We also have the fastest finality at sub-second speeds.

Our third focus involves decentralized infrastructure supporting emerging technologies. With slight improvements above and below, you can unlock capabilities around storage and compute never seen with previous blockchains. This enables running AI and ML infrastructure on fully decentralized networks, helps with data discoverability for banks, and evolves content delivery frameworks.

Your examples frequently focus on institutional use cases. Is there a disconnect between Aptos’ vision and where the market actually is today?

Our PACT protocol exemplifies what we want the next five years to look like. It’s utilizing 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 before.

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

Additionally, within DeFi, which has had product-market fit for several cycles and been pioneered within the Ethereum and EVM L2 communities, we’re exploring what a healthy DeFi ecosystem looks like on a high-throughput blockchain that abstracts much of Web3’s friction.

Can my father, a doctor in Kentucky who saves all his passwords on notepads, park some stablecoins in a reliable place to earn yield and participate in the on-chain economy with limited friction? Not having to save a passkey while still benefiting from decentralization and self-custody? Making it easier for people to onboard and earn money in the on-chain economy is very exciting for us.

We’re in a period where many crypto projects have fallen short of their promises. What keeps you confident that Aptos can succeed where others have struggled?

Speaking broadly to the industry of 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 leaving Web3 for more stable environments. Anything we can do to retain talented people to continue the mission of decentralized networks, self-custody, and provenance, we need to do it — not just from our side, but from any foundation or ecosystem.

We need to keep people building or, otherwise, we’ll never see the revolution in the world we want to see on a timescale that matters. We shouldn’t take progress for granted. It takes work to keep people building for the future.

Global economic uncertainties and escalating trade tensions are creating ripple effects throughout cryptocurrency markets, with Dogecoin demonstrating remarkable resilience amid the turbulence.

After experiencing a sharp 21.2% correction that saw prices tumble from $0.165 to $0.130, DOGE has staged a significant recovery, while the broader crypto market staged a comeback as the CoinDesk 20 Index rose 9% in the last 24 hours. It established strong support around the $0.142-$0.145 zone with substantial buying volume, confirming the rebound’s legitimacy.

Technical Analysis Breakdown

DOGE/USD experienced extreme volatility, dropping from $0.165 to $0.130 (21.2% range) before staging a significant recovery.

A strong bullish reversal pattern formed with solid support established in the $0.142-$0.145 zone, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis model.

Volume analysis confirms recovery legitimacy, with peak accumulation during the April 9th rally pushing prices above the critical $0.160 resistance.

Price currently consolidating at the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level with horizontal support at $0.155.

In recent trading, DOGE formed a clear ascending channel with support at $0.155 and resistance at $0.156.

Significant accumulation occurred during the 11:32 period with 7 million units of volume, confirming buyer interest.

30 minutes of trading during early U.S. hours showed increasing momentum with consecutive higher lows and a breakthrough above the $0.156 resistance.

The pattern suggests a potential continuation of the uptrend toward the previous 48-hour high of $0.165.

Disclaimer: This article was generated with AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy. This article may include information from external sources, which are listed below when applicable.

External References:

Times Tabloid, «Dogecoin (DOGE) Price Analysis: Indicators Point to Potential Bullish Reversal,» published April 8, 2025.​

The Crypto Basic, «Analyst Shares Realistic Dogecoin Targets Highlighting Critical Support and Resistance Levels,» published April 8, 2025.​

CoinGape, «Analyst Forecasts Over 59% Dogecoin Price Crash Coming Soon, Here’s Why,» published April 8, 2025.​CoinGape

NewsBTC, «Dogecoin Fading Fervor: Has The Meme Coin Lost Its Mojo?» published April 7, 2025.​

Bitzo, «Bitcoin, Solana, and Dogecoin in Freefall Amid Massive Sell-off – Is the End Near?» published April 8, 2025

In early January, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was stepping down, all polls pointed to political upheaval in Canada should an election be called.

Now, it looks to be an unprecedented fourth term for the Liberal Party, led by former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, with a contract on Myriad Markets, a new prediction market, giving Carney a 74% chance of taking office.

Back in January, a poll tracker from CBC projected that the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, could have made history winning up to 244 of the 338 seats in Canada’s Parliament.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals may have been relegated to third place, an astonishing fall for a party whose leader entered Ottawa as one of Canada’s most liked. At the time, Quebec’s Bloc Quebecois – a federal party that solely exists to advance Quebec’s interests on the national stage – assumed the role of official opposition.

But much has changed since then.

January 6 was the day that Trudeau announced his resignation and polls reflected the last days of what one columnist for the National Post described as a «legacy of chaos and disaster.»

This is continuing coverage of the Canadian election as part of an exclusive arrangement between myriad markets and Consensus by CoinDesk. Consensus 2025 will take place in Toronto May 14-16.

The Conservative party had already been in campaign mode weeks before Trudeau’s resignation, latching on to inflation and Canada’s declining post-Covid affordability and were rewarded with it handsomely in the polls.

Voters weren’t impressed with the Liberal’s proposals on carbon taxes and Trudeau’s plans for housing affordability were seen as not scratching the surface of the problem.

On January 7, there was no Trudeau. Without a foil, Poilievre was suddenly less effective and likeable. While the Conservatives have a whole library of policies, the headline was about Trudeau. There was no other ballot box question. Polls showed that the Conservative’s lead was beginning to slip.

Then Donald Trump entered the fray.

A trade war with Canada’s largest trading partner – something unfathomable a year ago – became a reality.

Carney won the race to replace Trudeau as Liberal leader – temporarily becoming the country’s prime minister. With Carney at the helm, the Liberals leaped into a significant lead nationally.

Carney, a former central banker, outpaced Poilievre in favorability ratings, reflecting widespread public sentiment that an experienced central banker was more trustworthy to handle pressing economic challenges than a lifelong partisan operative.

Carney’s significant experience on Bay Street, Wall Street, and in central banks ticked a lot of the right boxes for the electorate, putting him on track, as Myriad Markets’ election contract shows, to be elected as Canada’s twenty-fourth prime minister.

The Canadian election contract is one of the 30-odd markets currently on the platform, which cover a variety of topics from crypto prices, to the launch date of Grand Theft Auto VI.

Myriad Markets is a brainchild of the Decrypt and Rug Radio team, which launched it last year as part of a “interconnected media ecosystem” that integrates on-chain prediction markets alongside written and video content.

Crypto not on the Ballot

The Trump campaign doubled-down on crypto in the election as a way to get swing voters to the ballot box.

As Conservative party leader, Poilievre said in late 2022 that he wanted to make Canada the «Blockchain capital of the world». Disclosures show he holds shares in the Purpose Bitcoin ETF.

A 2022 survey from the Ontario Securities Commission showed that 13% of Canadians owned crypto assets, of which most were male and under 45.

One might wonder, then, why crypto isn’t a bigger issue in this election. It could be that part of the reason why is corporations are not allowed to fund political operations as they do in the United States; around $120 million – or about half of all corporate money donated – in the last election came from crypto companies.

Poilievre likely believes crypto is not worth dwelling on amid broader economic uncertainty and cross-border tensions that are top-of-mind for voters.

Crypto industry groups are waiting until after the election to press their case, seeing it as tone-deaf to push on crypto issues right now.

Whoever wins, they will have to work closely with Canada’s provinces, which control securities regulation. This is likely why crypto has only gotten moderate attention in Parliament in Ottawa. Any sort of development would likely come from the Provinces.

Crypto regulation in Canada is a featured topic at Consensus 2025 in Toronto, which takes place from May 14-16.