Exclusive Interview with Aptos Labs Co-Founder: Ease of Use Doesn't Imply Technical Leadership—Aptos Has Always Been Developer-Centric
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Exclusive Interview with Aptos Labs Co-Founder: Ease of Use Doesn't Imply Technical Leadership—Aptos Has Always Been Developer-Centric
What sets Aptos apart is our developer-centric approach.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthors: JulianKin & Stoneberri, AptosGlobal
Edited by: TechFlow
User-friendly products do not necessarily mean leading technology; what sets Aptos apart is our developer-centric approach.
-- Mo Shaikh, Co-Founder and CEO of Aptos Labs
New Layer 1s and Layer 2s continue to emerge in the market. According to incomplete statistics, there are still over 60 Layer 1 blockchains yet to launch their mainnets. As a once highly popular MOVE-based Layer 1, after experiencing market hype, Aptos has gradually embarked on its own development path.
TechFlow had the privilege of collaborating with AptosGlobal to interview Mo Shaikh, Co-Founder and CEO of Aptos Labs, to discuss Aptos’ ecosystem progress and future plans over the past year.
TechFlow: Could you briefly introduce your background? What inspired you to get into blockchain and this industry?
Mo Shaikh: I'm Mo Shaikh, co-founder and CEO of Aptos Labs. I'm a native of Brooklyn and a first-generation Pakistani-American. My parents immigrated to New York in 1989 and raised five children to become compassionate and hardworking Americans. From them, I learned a great deal about socioeconomic values—particularly the importance of sharing value with people you care about, whether they’re your neighbors or individuals living on the other side of the world.
My journey into Aptos and Web3 spans global finance—I’ve worked at BlackRock and Royal Bank of Canada, consulted at BCG, served as an advisor at the World Economic Forum, was CEO of Meridio (backed by Consensys), and later joined Meta’s blockchain team.
The founding vision of Aptos Labs is to deliver economic value to people around the world through decentralized and easy-to-use technology.
TechFlow: In your view, where do traditional internet and blockchain intersect? How can Web3 achieve mass adoption and attract the next billion users?
Mo Shaikh: Traditional web platforms are user-friendly—that's their biggest advantage. But ease of use doesn't imply user-first technology, and our team takes a different approach. At Aptos Labs, we place strong emphasis on improving the developer experience. By doing so, we empower developers to create truly exceptional experiences for end users.
Despite Web3’s incredible advantages, it hasn’t achieved mass adoption because entry barriers have historically been too high. Our team actively works to address this through every resource, product, and upgrade we introduce. For example, to celebrate Aptos’ one-year anniversary, the Aptos Labs team launched Graffio—a collaborative pixel art app that invited contributions from both inside and outside the Aptos ecosystem. It quickly went viral, achieving 1.8 million views, drawing 75 million pixels on a 1-million-pixel canvas, and attracting over 331,000 new Graffio artist users. This activation broke barriers thanks to Aptos’ unparalleled transaction speed, security, and innovative use of the Move programming language.
TechFlow: It’s been a year since Aptos launched its mainnet. How would you summarize Aptos’ achievements during this period? Can you share how the ecosystem has evolved over the past year?
Mo Shaikh: A year ago, numbers like 111 validator nodes, 24 active countries, and 43 active cities seemed unattainable. But since mainnet launch, the ecosystem has not only reached but exceeded these milestones. Over the past 12 months, Aptos Labs has partnered with Web2 giants like NBCU to create immersive fan experiences for major films such as *The Exorcist: Believer* and *Renfield*. We also collaborated with KYD Labs to create a groundbreaking, unprecedented music festival fully powered by Web3, headlined by Pitbull.
If it happens in Web3, it happens on Aptos—this reflects the impressive ecosystem built atop Aptos.
The Aptos community has grown rapidly over the past year, expanding from just 30 projects at mainnet launch to over 200 active projects today across DeFi, NFTs, dApps, gaming, and more—and this is only the beginning.
From day one, Aptos’ developer community has been unique, consistently striving to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 through increasingly breakthrough on-chain innovations—all natively built on Aptos.
This year, the Aptos World Tour Hackathon took place in Seoul, Amsterdam, and Singapore. These events not only provided international developers with a Move-powered platform to showcase rich user experience projects, but also further expanded Aptos’ global community. The Aptos Labs team has enthusiastically supported hackathon initiatives (such as the recently launched Aptos Arena) and looks forward to supporting even more in the future.
In the coming year, I look forward to continuing my travels around the world to support developers and further grow the Aptos community.
TechFlow: There are already many Layer 1 platforms in the market. What makes Aptos different from other blockchain platforms?
Mo Shaikh: There are certainly some powerful Layer 1 platforms, but what sets Aptos apart is our developer-centric technology. Our core mission is to provide developers with the guidance and support they need throughout the entire development process. Our ecosystem offers a rich suite of tools and a solid technical foundation that enables developers to easily bring their innovative ideas to life. The key lies in the reliability, scalability, and security built directly into our infrastructure layer. To date, Aptos is the blockchain with the lowest latency and highest throughput on the market, a success largely attributable to the advanced technologies we employ.
TechFlow: Could you briefly explain the Move language to our readers, and how Move will play a role in the future development of smart contracts?
Mo Shaikh: Move is Aptos’ breakthrough programming language designed to help developers move safely and quickly from concept to production.
Aptos’ Move language continuously evolves to enhance the security and performance of dApps and integrations, receiving upgrades nearly every month, ensuring developers on Aptos are automatically and continuously equipped with the latest and best tools to advance their projects. Move also enabled Aptos to introduce the industry’s first fully reproducible performance benchmark, sparking a sector-wide dialogue around the definition of “performance” and working toward consensus.
By enabling parallel execution, Move allows tasks to be completed simultaneously, making transactions on Aptos faster and cheaper than elsewhere. It also prioritizes security by enforcing asset constraints that prevent assets from being duplicated or destroyed.
TechFlow: Your personal goal is to build a financial system that everyone can use, which is crucial for blockchain. What exciting developments can we expect from Aptos in the future?
Mo Shaikh: While I can’t reveal too much, I can say this: in the years ahead, Aptos Labs will remain steadfastly focused on user experience, interoperability, reliability, and scalability, continuously pushing Web3 closer to mass adoption. We are also constantly exploring ways to deepen existing partnerships and make new impacts in regions with high potential for mass adoption, such as the Asia-Pacific region.
I’m deeply grateful for the contributions Aptos Labs has made to the ecosystem and look forward to the exciting times ahead.
About AptosGlobal
AptosGlobal is an Asia-Pacific-based community dedicated to the Aptos ecosystem, committed to growing the Aptos ecosystem through organizing events, developer education, community building, and producing bilingual content. AptosGlobal has published over 50 original articles and videos and hosted more than 10 Aptos ecosystem events.
Founded in July 2022, AptosGlobal has received funding from the Aptos Foundation.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AptosGlobalHQ
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