Decentralised Internet Offers Ample Opportunities to Developers: Avery Ching of Aptos "Six and a half of the million of those (MAU) are actually from the Indian region," revealed the co-founder. "India is a huge market for us." The L1 blockchain company entered the region in 2023 as one of its test markets.

Building a product in an early-stage space like Web3 poses its fair share of obstacles and opportunities. If one has a vision that can bring utility to people through a decentralized internet it's possible and can be extremely rewarding to build a business that will benefit society, shared Avery Ching, co-founder and chief technology officer of Aptos with Entrepreneur India at India Blockchain Week 2024.

"I think the biggest thing for developers is to have a ton of grit," Ching said.

Ching and Mo Shaikh Founded Aptos in 2022 as a Layer 1 community-driven blockchain network. Aptos–with a backing of over USD 350M from the likes of Tiger Global, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and Coinbase Ventures– is focused on safety and scalability driving growth within a decentralized network and developer ecosystem. Aptos acts as a foundation for 206 projects including STAN, READYgg, Rarible, GuardianLink, OKX Explorer, and Chingari.

At present, it boasts of having over eight million monthly active users (MUA), placing itself in the top four ranking for blockchains. It also claims to hold the record for the highest daily transactions on a blockchain—326 million in a single day.

India's developer prowess

"Six and a half of the million of those (MAU) are actually from the Indian region," revealed the co-founder. "India is a huge market for us." The L1 blockchain company entered the region in 2023 as one of its test markets.

According to a recent report, India is the 2nd largest developer market, comprising 11.8 per cent of the crypto developers' base. Over 40 ecosystem projects are built on Aptos from India, and over 500 open-source Indian developers are building on the platform.

Ching reflects on the Indian tech capabilities, calling it "amazing" and "talented." According to him, the country houses individuals who are really passionate about building the most innovative products in the Web3 space. "

The Layer-1 platform is focused on backing user experience which prioritizes composability. Composability refers to the ability to combine and interconnect different blockchain protocols, smart contracts, and decentralized applications (dApps) in a modular and interoperable manner. "In India, the population is very large. It needs low-cost access to support applications that can be built nowhere else, eventually supporting the scale of a decentralized internet," Ching said.

Today, seven of its top 10 applications are from Indian founders. He cites Manish Agarwal and Ishank Gupta's KGeN as a success story from the domestic market, calling it both "revenue positive" and "profitable." On will Aptos and Ching invest in more Indian startups, he calls it a "no-brainer."

Ching also hints at government opportunities and feels that the Indian government is progressive regarding blockchain adoption.

On the spectrum

Internet activities and engagement, such as social media and e-commerce, can be reimagined with Web3 in a way that people have more control over their assets and can transact with anyone around the world in a trustless manner. Presently, major technology firms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon exert substantial control over the centralized internet market, commanding significant shares of online traffic and data.

"We want Aptos to become a decentralised internet."

So, where do we stand at present? Calling it still in its 'early phase', the blockchain personality shares, "There aren't a lot of applications that have generated millions of users."

"When you look at the internet, you have billions of users common for some of the largest applications in the world, whether it's search engines, social media sites and others," he added. As of October 2024, there were 5.52 billion internet users worldwide, accounting for 67.5 per cent of the global population.

Aptos' new programming language Move aims to help developers from ideation to production as quickly and safely as possible.

"There's a lot of opportunity for developers to come in and be a part of this early wave of applications that goes through trials and tribulations. But ultimately, we'll have billions of customers in that space," Ching concluded optimistically.

The global Web 3.0 market size was valued at USD 2.25 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49.3 per cent from 2024 to 2030, according to Grand View Research.