Roadmap release: Building dApps for Aptos/Move Ecosystem

2022 has been an incredibly productive time at Pontem. At the beginning of the year, we were focused on building a canary network for Diem. However, following its sale and likely integration into the Silvergate Exchange Network, it became clear that we needed to aim higher.

We recognized two key things about what Pontem stands for:

1. We believe in Diem’s original mission: global financial inclusion powered by blockchains.

2. We believe in the underlying technology built for Diem, particularly the Move programming language.

Fortunately, our future path was laid out for us with the launch of Aptos, a new blockchain built by former Diem engineers. Aptos leverages Move’s advanced features to build the most scalable, expressive, and powerful blockchain ever. As soon as we saw their work, we agreed that Aptos truly is the “the safest and most production-ready Layer 1 blockchain.” Furthermore, we love that Aptos believes in web3 as a tool for financial inclusion, and is working to expand access to billions of people on a global scale.  

We have partnered with Aptos to build foundational dApps and development tooling that will accelerate adoption. By building these applications in partnership with Aptos, we are able to achieve higher quality and better integration. These important products create value for users and reduce barriers to entry for developing, fueling growth for Aptos and its surrounding Move ecosystem. To those ends, we are building or actively researching five key products first.

Our Roadmap, in order of delivery:

1. Automated Market Maker

AMMs enable efficient, automated swaps of cryptocurrencies and other tokens, while generating returns for liquidity providers. We are building a low-slippage, low-fee AMM on Aptos, leveraging its best-in-class security and speed. Our product will use both Uniswap V2 for uncorrelated assets and Curve stableswap for correlated assets. It will also integrate voting escrow tokenomics (akin to veCRV) to incentivize governance on the platform.

2. dApp-Integrated Wallet

Our wallet is a simple, elegant browser extension, with superior security powered by Move and Aptos. Since the wallet is integrated with our other dApps, users can seamlessly access products like our AMM directly for a simpler experience. End users will enjoy peace of mind, since Aptos contains multiple enhanced security features, such as private key rotation and recovery that reduce accidental losses. Furthermore, the underlying Move architecture is built from the ground up to prevent exploits and technical errors.

3. Pontem Blocks

Pontem Blocks is our no-code automation tool for yield farming and other DeFi strategies. Our tool enables anyone, even those with no technical skills, to automate transactions involving multiple dApps. Low-code ‘Blocks’ of transaction scripts can be shared, repurposed, and linked to other ‘Blocks,’ enabling an endless array of customizable DeFi interactions. We believe low-code tools like this are powerful engines for financial inclusion because they lower DeFi’s technical barrier to entry and eliminate the need for constant active management of a portfolio.

4. Ethereum Virtual Machine Layer for Aptos

Our Move-compatible EVM is the most exciting and technically complex product in our roadmap. The cross-chain interface translates Ethereum-like transactions and smart contracts into Move bytecode to be executed in Aptos. This enables the vast Ethereum developer base to leverage Aptos’s scalability and go-to-market readiness with minimal updates to their existing code. Solidity and Move compatibility in Aptos allows developers to experiment with Move, experience its native safety and scalability features, before eventually migrating their code fully.

5. Governance Protocol

The fifth piece of the Move puzzle is our governance protocol, which enables efficient governance management across multiple products. Powered by a governance token, this protocol delegates governance ‘on-chain’ to  democratically elected experts and streamlines decision-making for our AMM, EVM, and other products. The Pontem MMP bundles community governance to grow protocol-owned value from our family of protocols.

And this is just the beginning! We are actively researching a wide range of other projects, including node APIs, liquid staking, and overcollateralized stablecoins. Much of our decision-making around future efforts will be directed by input from the growing Aptos/Move community. So keep in touch on Telegram!