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Aptos Foundation and Aptos Labs said they have committed more than $50 million to expand the Layer 1 blockchain ecosystem, with funding aimed at first-party products, infrastructure, research, and a strategic fund for trading and AI partners.
Aptos confirmed the $50 million allocation in a Thursday post on X. The team said the capital will support products, protocol infrastructure, and research initiatives, alongside plans to create a strategic fund for trading firms and AI-focused partners.
The statement framed the effort around a shift toward institutional-grade market activity and automated systems operating onchain. Aptos said the funding—described as committed across the stack—is intended to help drive that transition.
The funding package includes support for Decibel, an onchain perpetuals exchange incubated by Aptos Labs. Decibel launched on the Aptos mainnet in February, and Aptos reported that it has surpassed $1 billion in cumulative trading volume.
Aptos also highlighted Shelby, a hot storage protocol designed for AI agents operating onchain. The team described Shelby as infrastructure built to support growing agent-driven workloads and linked it to increasing demand for machine-based transactions.
In the post, Aptos said trading represented the first agentic workload to scale onchain, while data is the next phase of that shift. It added that datasets are licensed for AI training and exchanged between agents across decentralized marketplaces.
Aptos reported that its stablecoin market cap has grown nearly tenfold since late 2024. According to DefiLlama data cited by Aptos, stablecoin market cap peaked at about $1.93 billion in February 2026 before declining to roughly $1.66 billion as of Thursday.
Aptos also stated that the network’s total value locked (TVL) stands at $270.8 million. The figure remains below prior peaks of about $1.3 billion recorded in December 2024 and May 2025.
Aptos did not disclose further information on the strategic fund’s structure or allocation terms, nor did it provide updates on future funding timelines.
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