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Now Live on Aptos: Chainlink CCIP
Recorded: Sept. 9, 2025 Duration: 0:29:42Space Recording
Short Summary
In a groundbreaking discussion, Chainlink and Aptos representatives unveiled the launch of CCIP on the Aptos network, marking a pivotal partnership aimed at enhancing blockchain interoperability. This collaboration is set to drive growth by bridging liquidity across ecosystems, attracting institutional capital, and simplifying user onboarding in the DeFi space.
Full Transcription
Thank you. GM folks, just getting started.
The speaker's coming up shortly and we'll get underway. Jim Halk.
Jim Halk.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, man. You Ash, are you dialing in on the Aptos account?
Okay. gmgm oh nice now now get the party going welcome welcome mash yo yo
cool folks uh we can get started we got got everyone here. We have exciting space today talking
about the latest alpha coming out from both of our teams. CCIP is now live on Aptos. This
continues the momentum of non-EVM chain integrations and marks the first move-based chain expansion
for CCIP. So to impact this big milestone, we have representatives from both ecosystems. We have Ash from the Apatose Foundation, Halcyon from Chainlink Labs.
We could take a quick moment for some introductions here.
My name is Harris.
I'm the product marketing lead for CCIP at Chainlink Labs.
So covering all things Interop on the marketing side.
So really excited to have both Ash and Halc here today to unpack this development and share a point of view.
So maybe, Ash, I'll pass it over your way.
If you could tell some of the folks joining in today a little bit about yourself and maybe your focus at Aptos Foundation.
Wonderful, wonderful. I'll try to keep it as short and sweet as you did.
I'm Ash. I work on behalf of the ecosystem on Aptos at the Aptos Foundation.
Super excited for this moment.
It's been a long time coming.
And for Aptos, its community, its technology, founders, this is a huge point of validation.
So super excited to get deep with you guys here.
Awesome.
Great to have you.
And Hal, I'll see you in a little bit about yourself.
Yeah. Hey, guys, GM, GM. I look after blockchain partnerships at Chainlink. And I was actually
just thinking back, Ash, to when we caught up at Token 2049 in Dubai earlier this year.
It's crazy how quickly this has come around. And we're obviously super excited on our end as well. So happy to rip into it.
100%. Love it.
Love it.
So maybe just to get started, Ash, if you could share a little bit about what Aptos is about, the mission for the Chainlink community.
Maybe it's a great place to start, and then we can jump into the developments.
Yeah.
So if you're not familiar with Aptos as a network, it was really incubated at Meta out of the Libra DM project.
So it spun out from Meta and has been in market on Mainnet for close to three years now.
And the architecture, technically speaking, is really built for a couple of things.
One is billions of users. So it needs to be fast.
It needs to be reliable. There needs to be zero downtime. Two is a high level of smart contract
security to move trillions of dollars on the internet in a decentralized manner. So
that's what we've been built out of the box. And we're super excited about partnering with Chainlink here to bring CCIP on to move.
Right on. Yeah. So maybe we jump into that, right?
So, you know, Ash, both Ash Halcyon, but maybe Ash, we'll start with you.
What excites you most about this development bringing CCIP and Appist together?
Yeah, I mean, so just from afar,
I've always been a huge fanboy of Chainlink. I think one of the very few companies
that has been really not only a great business,
but a strong team that knows go-to-market
better than anyone else,
knows how to align its products
and services with different networks and ecosystems to drive value. And so number one,
I'm very excited to be working with a team like that in the space. And that's, what's great. I
think the second piece is, is validation. You know, I mentioned before, Move was developed at Meta. And the reason why it was developed was, at the time, looking across the ecosystem on the smart contract side, there wasn't anything good enough to move billions, potentially trillions in value from one billion user app economy to another billion user app economy.
And so for us, this is a moment in the making
where it validates the Aptos ecosystem.
People who are in the ecosystem,
whether they be companies, whether they be users,
can rest assured that there's a high pedigree
of value being managed here in a safe and structured manner.
And so that's what's super exciting.
And I think for us, it just helps us stand on a new plane
for DeFi to push things forward.
Awesome, yeah, I love that perspective.
Maybe Halcyon, anything you'd like to add
in terms of what you're excited about most
for this development?
Yeah, I think just building on what Ash was mentioning,
what's really cool about the Aptos
ecosystem is you have this great intersection of sort of DeFi native protocols that have
selected Aptos as their chain of choice or a very interesting ecosystem that brings a
lot of novel attributes with it.
But also obviously the deep connections with institutional partners,
not only probably from the early days of the development of the Aptos protocol, but even
sort of building out since then. And I think that really resonates with Chainlink's mission, right,
of connecting sort of these two different categories of like market participants. And CCIP
is also a great solution that helps facilitate that, not only sort of
bridging value or liquidity from other ecosystems to Aptos, but also from permissioned private
chains that are operated by institutional partners of Aptos and Chainlink as well.
So I think that's probably one of the most exciting things, especially with the deep
institutional connections Aptos has, as well as the sort of native OG DeFi
builders who have also now moved across to Aptos or expanded to Aptos as their ecosystem of choice?
Yeah, I think that's a really good jumping off point. I mean, I think one bigger
mega trend we're seeing is this idea of convergence of both DeFi institutional audiences kind of coming together.
So maybe Hal-San, we'd love to get your take here on
like how does the Chainlink platform support
the ever growing needs for both of these audiences?
Well, I think the Chainlink platform specifically, right
speaks to the number of different services
that the Chainlink network anchors, one of
which is CCIP, right?
And it's really, I suppose, the complementary manner that these solutions work across each
other that really enriches experiences for DeFi builders, equipping them with the right
tools, right, to build out the sort of applications they envision.
So obviously today's focusing on CCIP,
which has in itself a lot of interesting features baked in
that unlock value on the compliance side of things,
baked in solutions that enable compliant applications
and the movement of compliant liquidity as well,
as well as CCIP interacting with other existing
chain link services that are supported on Aptos like data feeds, for example.
Sorry.
So now you have applications that not only can access accurate, reliable pricing for
collateral that they're accepting in their applications, but also on top of
that, bridge in new forms of native collateral that they can accept in their protocols.
And it's really those, I think, the complementary manner of those services that you don't see
across sort of other service providers.
And we're very fortunate to have Aptos as a partner, having very interesting and novel applications being built on Aptos, who are, I suppose, taking advantage of these complementary services that the Chainlink platform unlocks as a result.
I think that's a great summary of the bringing together
of all of these different standards,
these ingredients that are really essential
for really both audiences, right?
And people might use them differently
depending on their use case.
I mean, we're here today to talk about CCIP
and the interoperability standards.
So maybe Halseyin, if we double click on interop real quick,
how does CCIP differ from other cross-chain bridges
in terms of security from your perspective?
I think that's a great question.
I think where CCIP stands out is because it's a solution which,
Harris, as you eloquently put before, is built to enable the convergence
of traditional finance and DeFi.
It requires a level of security that institutions are comfortable with and
also a feature set that enables them to remain compliant with existing policies that they
need to remain compliant with based on their existing core business.
And so where CCIP stands out is not only access to those, that suite of compliance tools that are baked into CCIP, but also the security, the secure architecture.
So CCIP, for those who are unaware, is anchored by this concept of chain link decentralized Oracle networks or DONs for short.
Chainlink Decentralized Oracle Networks, or DONs for short.
And every single lane where an asset passes or a message passes from one chain to another,
the facilitation of that message passing or the bridging of that token
passes through a consensus of three distinct Oracle networks or networks, right?
And so that level of security is something that institutions
require. And also perhaps like OGs of DeFi will remember back in the day with like the earliest
form of bridges, or perhaps you were just using centralized exchanges as on and off ramps between
different networks. There were a whole set
of different trust assumptions
that you were having to take on, right?
So you didn't have access to this level of security
and reliability that institutions require
and that CCIP was built around.
So I would say that's sort of the main thing
that sets it apart is the level of native security,
compliance, privacy features that are built into CCIP are what make
it stand out. Yeah, totally. I totally agree with you, Hal. I think we're going to probably
bounce between DeFi institutions just like as I was getting at this convergence trend is unfolding.
So maybe Ash, from your perspective. Can you hear me? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yeah. Sorry, Ash, can you hear me?
I can hear you. Okay, cool. Yeah, so I think, you know, kind of bouncing between the DeFi side
and institutional side, I think Calc brings up a great point around some of these requirements
or expectations. Ash, are you there? Is it just me or is Harris down?
expectations these. Ash, are you there? Is it just me or is Harris down?
I can, I can hear, I can hear Harris.
That's odd. All right. I'll, I'll keep riffing, um, Ash,
I guess the next question would be for you, uh, on the DeFi side. Um, you know,
how, how does Aptos view like onboarding the next wave of DeFi users? Like,
especially those, I think, I think of things as like classes of entrance, right?
So, you know, for example, I came in and like class of 17, we had a bunch of people in 2020.
And I think we're in this new wave of appetite and interest for what we offer.
You know, how do you see this new wave of onboarding to people into crypto working with teams like ours?
Yeah, it's a good
question um you know it's interesting you bring up kind of when you were onboarded and uh i guess
what we could call the next peak of the cycle um but you know i think around when you were
onboarded it was kind of this renaissance of belief in what distributed systems or decentralized
infrastructure could mean for the internet or the
evolution of the internet. And I think you saw a lot of amazing primitives come to market and,
you know, obviously the ICO boom. But I think that brought in a lot of believers,
a lot of true believers, you know, who weren't brought in maybe earlier than that.
And then 2020 is when I got, you know you know 2021 2020 was when i got brought in and
the reason i got brought in is because i had spent about 11 years working at spotify and youtube
um you know trying to blaze the creator economy um you know on the internet uh and i saw nfts
kind of happened uh and for me i was oh, this is this is the next thing.
Like, this is how creators and users align incentives perfectly.
And so that's what I got brought in. And I got brought in, you know, in the Solana space could essentially bootstrap bottoms up a DeFi ecosystem.
And, you know, Solana at the time was a new ecosystem and its DeFi ecosystem was, I would say, like bootstrap through culture.
And I think that translated to meme coins and then to wherever we are now and i think wherever we're at right now it's really about uh the way i look at it is um
and maybe i'm wrong or maybe have people have another idea here is for the first time in its
full history uh you know cryptography and blockchains have pushed more towards an applied
technology than purely just a philosophy right and a philosophy. You can see essentially that with
institution-wide spread adoption and also
companies like Chainlink have always known this is the case,
and are readier more than ever,
as well as Aptos for this moment.
The way I look at the next wave of onboarding is two ways. One, with all of the new policies and ideas around regulation for crypto coming out of the U.S., you can start to think of amazing pools of capital starting to put all of their money on chain, you know,
whether it be unions, whether it be retirement funds, whether it be all of these things that
have basically sat idle off chain or not necessarily idle, but have been idle and relative
to being on chain can now, you know, imagine all of that capital coming on chain. So that's one,
like, I think once we start to see those parties come on chain, that's going to be insanely exciting. And I think U.S. regulation,
fingers crossed, is blazing that path to accelerate it. On the user side, you know,
I think on the user side, I've seen a lot of amazing founders who've basically said,
yeah, like we're going to make yield super accessible.
We're going to be mobile first and we're going to target folks who have a lower risk profile,
but want to make some money. And we're going to abstract all of the complexity
in terms of things happening on chain or not. And we're going to use AI, right? To algorithmically
right size, like risk appetite across different protocols or ecosystems
to give the right return.
Um, and so I, I see it all happening.
I see, you know, uh, from like the, the, the liquidity side, like starting to get traditional
entities on chain, which is going to be huge.
And then on the consumer side, making things dead freaking simple
for anyone to just be onboarded and make some money. And that's what I think is going to be
exciting. And I think that's where I am excited because you start to get into on the consumer
side, like, okay, like we can actually drive millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of users across these
products because they're ready and it's in the language that they're used to.
Yeah, I see things pretty similarly, Ash.
I think the liquidity opportunity, I kind of see it similarly.
And I agree with you that if we're onboarding more users, we got to make it super intuitive.
And so I think, you know, as we focus this conversation into like the business unlocks for the broader Web3 ecosystem,
how curious to get your take beyond the technicals, you know, what kind of core business value are we talking here for like Chainlink CCIP?
Like, how does it further what's possible
with ecosystem like Aptos and the broader industry at large?
So I think perhaps with CCIP specifically,
it's synchronizing liquidity across different ecosystems.
So allowing DApps that are building on Aptos
to access unique types of liquidity from other ecosystems by
having asset issuers who natively issue on chains using expanding via CCIP alone to now issue
natively on Aptos. And as those asset issuers then stand up markets across different Aptos DeFi protocols, you'll see more and more liquidity migrate across this ecosystem and more and more yield opportunities for holders of those assets.
So I think that perhaps like at a base level is what CCIP unlocks.
level is what CCIP unlocks. I think what's really interesting and perhaps it's sort of building on
the last question is when Ash and I caught up earlier in the year, I remember Ash, you was
talking about also Aptos' focus on building out sort of the next set of like consumer products,
right? Abstracting away, and I think you mentioned this before, abstracting away a lot of the sort of
core technical components of chains. And I think it'll be interesting to see also how these consumer products bake in
tools like CCIP under the hood. So users on Aptos don't even realize perhaps that they're
bridging liquidity over from other chains to Aptos. They onboard Aptos. They have instant access
to liquidity in a variety of different assets that are supported by CCIP through a front end
that completely abstracts away the blockchain and the underlying infrastructure for them. And I think that's really neat.
And then on top of that, CCIP also enables a really simple onboarding process for issuing
new tokens. And as we see people start to tokenize sort of more exotic instruments
and build applications around those on Aptos.
I think also the way that people will be able to do that
via CCIP without even knowing that they're interacting
with the solution under the hood
presents like a really interesting opportunity
for builders on Aptos as well.
So I think maybe that's a couple, yeah,
interesting things that I see for Aptos.
Yeah, what I'm hearing is an opportunity to continue to lower the barrier to welcome more people to participate in the DeFi ecosystem and the broader blockchain economy.
So I guess Ash would love to get your take here as well.
How can we continue to work together to lower these barriers?
How can we continue to work together to lower these barriers?
Yeah, I mean, I think firstly, and I say this through true belief, is that I believe blockchain infrastructure should be invisible if it's going to actually onboard the amount of people we want to onboard as an industry.
What does that mean?
What does that mean? I think that means that as a data structure, as a network, as a distributed system, it gets the job done better than anyone else, more efficiently and more securely.
And so I think that's our goal. From a technical thesis perspective is we want our rails to power the global GDP, right? From a network perspective.
That's why we continue to improve the blockchain, even though sometimes say,
Hey man, like, you know, it's already good enough.
It's like, no, it's not.
It's not good enough. Right.
It needs to keep being better.
It needs to be the best.
And I think it needs to be the best because we want it to be invisible.
And the moment we become invisible is the moment you can actually onboard a real regular Joe or Jane onto crypto.
Right. And I think that's that's what needs to happen.
So I think from a blockchain architecture perspective, that is definitely something that we are doing to lower the barrier.
barrier. I think on top of that, in terms of primitives that can be built on to enable certain
actions or use cases, you know, we're really focused on a couple areas, right? I mean,
we are a permissionless, you know, network, you know, we're a generalized blockchain
built with blue chip technology and a team that stands behind it. But we obviously think trading
or the, you know, just to kind of make this word a little bit more
expansive and diverse, but the exchange of value across any asset should happen on the most
efficient and secure network. That's what we believe, right? So trading as a definition is
something that we're really interested in. So a lot of core primitives are being built
just atop the blockchain to allow
new use cases that are one, unique across the board, but two, make doing it on blockchain a
novel experience. And I can share some of the things that we've done related to that. We
actually just published a new one. I guess Nick, whoever's on the Aptos co-host side,
the transaction, scheduled transactions is a really exciting one.
So that's one example.
The second is on payments.
And I think we've seen, I'm super bullish about all of these new for-purpose payments chains.
One, because I think it's essentially, again, once again, like validation that on-chain rails can be more efficient for money movement peer-to-peer.
It's also an opportunity for emerging markets to reach parity with large capital markets.
And that's what's exciting.
And that's what this chain was built for.
That's what this chain was built for.
But secondly, it's bullish for Aptos because there's so much that has gone into the development and maintenance and evolution of the blockchain to just get better and better to settle a payment anywhere.
And so that's what's super exciting for us in terms of lowering the barrier, both within trading and payments.
for us in terms of lowering the barrier, both within trading and payments.
I think from an ecosystem development perspective, the way I kind of look at it with it, which
was mentioned before, which is I actually now, I believe that startup founders are going
to be the ones, even with all the institutional interest here, they're going to be the ones
guiding the future, right?
And so what do they need to do?
One, they need to have an ability to meet institutions on their level, understand their
needs, but also be an expert in the space on how to drive growth and market share. And so that's
kind of what I look at now in terms of new founders we want to bring on or new products and use cases that the chain and also now being validated by Chainlink and the partner is ready for.
And so that's kind of how I think about it.
Yeah, that was a really great recap, Ash.
Thank you for the perspective there.
So I think I just want to give it to both of you
if there's any other closing thoughts before we wrap up. No, I think I just want to echo everything
Ash has said so far. We're very fond of Aptos, who have been incredible partners to Chainlink.
We're really excited about what this CCIP integration enables for their ecosystem.
A lot of new asset issuers who have been waiting
to expand to Aptos now have that ability to do so.
And I encourage anybody who's been waiting
for this integration to bridge liquidity across chain
to Aptos to now seriously consider that.
Obviously, we're here to support
and you can find any of the details
around the integration in our docs.
I'm sure in Aptos' docs docs as well and we really look forward to continuing this uh this close close partnership
and looking at other ways to help uh enable the vision via via chain link infrastructure
yeah and i just want to add uh to house's point i i just want to say on behalf of our team
it has been such a joy to partner and work closely with the Chainlink team.
I mean, I think there are very few teams at this pedigree of not only market dominance,
but also just precise execution, right? We all know this industry is full of noisy stuff,
but we got to work with a partner who took a bet on Aptos and the Move ecosystem,
dealt with a lot of the, I'm sure, challenges that don't exist or have long passed
since EVM has been around and other more mature ecosystems,
and just were always super helpful, patient, and helped guide us as well.
So Halcyon, thanks on behalf of the team and foundation.
Awesome.
Well, everyone, I'm really glad that we could get this moment together.
If you enjoyed hearing the perspectives from both Ash and Halcyon,
we often host X-Bases actually on the Chainlink handle.
So if you're new to the Chainlink community,
you could throw the Chainlink official Twitter or X rather account a follow
to stay up to date or feel free to dive into Telegram or Discord channels
to connect with the community.
We have some newsletters as well if you prefer to stay informed that way.
Ash, any plugs from your perspective for the Aptos community?
It's good to see you, Aptos community. We talk a lot. We'll talk more, but thanks for showing up. Awesome. Well, we've got
some exciting events coming up on the back end of this year. We'll be at Token 2049, and of course,
we have SmartCon coming up in November. It will be in New York City.
So hope to see many of you there.
And again, Ash, Halcyon, thanks so much
for being a part of the conversation today.
Cheers, Ash.
Thanks, Ash.
Cheers, guys.
Thanks, Halcyon.
Bye-bye. Thank you.
