Decibel, a New Onchain Trading Engine for Spot, Perps, and Yield Opportunities, Launches on Aptos
Decibel, a fully decentralized trading engine built for speed, scale, and composability, launched today on the Aptos blockchain. Developed by Aptos Labs in collaboration with the newly formed Decibel Foundation, Decibel brings together spot trading, perpetuals, and yield strategies into a single, high-performance system. It is designed to serve as an independent, neutral infrastructure for global onchain markets.
Decibel is now live on Devnet. Users can explore the platform in an invite-only test environment, gaining simulated access to high-speed execution, cross-margin accounts, and composable yield strategies. Decibel unifies the performance of centralized exchanges with the transparency and flexibility of DeFi—all through a single wallet-native interface.
Built on Aptos, the fastest Layer 1 blockchain in production, Decibel was designed to act as the execution layer within Aptos' broader financial stack. Alongside Aptos' natural fit for payments (for stablecoin infrastructure) and Shelby (for real-time, decentralized data storage), Decibel enables traders, developers, and institutions to move capital, execute trades, and access financial data instantly. It provides DeFi protocols on Aptos with unified liquidity, programmable automation, and real-time settlement—all composable by design.
'Decibel was designed to democratize access to sophisticated, scalable trading infrastructure,' said Oliver Bell, Board Director at Decibel Foundation. 'Decibel isn't just another DeFi protocol—it's the execution layer that will power the next generation of financial applications and services.'
'Decibel reflects what we've always believed at Aptos Labs, that the next generation of financial systems should be fast, open, and programmable,' said Avery Ching, Co-Founder and CEO of Aptos Labs. "This is a critical step towards the Global Trading Engine vision, where all assets are tokenized and tradeable onchain, and capital markets operate 24/7 without borders, Decibel helps reduce market fragmentation by bringing execution, yield opportunities, and capital efficiency into one unified system, where money moves better onchain.'
"This is a very ambitious vision for the next generation of onchain trading,' said Jordi Alexander, CIO of Selini, a top-three global trader of onchain perps. 'If Decibel can pull off the performance and reliability outlined in the roadmap, it should be a step change for traders everywhere."
Why it Matters
The launch comes as demand for onchain infrastructure reaches new highs. In Q2 2025, DEX volumes exceeded $876B, and DeFi usage topped 14.2 million active wallets with over $48B in weekly transaction volume. However, many projects continue to depend on fragmented platforms and third-party exchanges, which can restrict composability and hinder broader ecosystem development. Decibel addresses these challenges by providing developers with direct access to order flow, real-time data, and programmable incentives, aiming to improve integration and system efficiency.
How Decibel Works
Decibel will support a multicollateral system where many assets can be used as collateral from a single cross-margin account, with users maintaining full self-custody of their assets while interacting with Decibel. Vaults can generate yield, and vault deposits can double as collateral. The decentralized architecture allows developers to permissionlessly build on top of Decibel, routing trade volume to Decibel via new trading interfaces, composable DeFi products, liquidity layers, and more. With Aptos' X-Chain Accounts, users can onboard from Ethereum or Solana without bridges or switching wallets.
Aptos has led the blockchain space in throughput, finality (600ms), and ultra-low fees ($0.00005). With major performance upgrades on the horizon, Decibel is creating a highly optimized trading VM — integrating deeply with Block-STM and the rest of the Aptos stack — and working toward sub-20ms block times while scaling to 1,000,000 orders per second, aiming to rival the speed and efficiency of top centralized exchanges.
Aptos Labs built the initial infrastructure for Decibel in collaboration with the Decibel Foundation, which will provide long-term support to the Decibel ecosystem. Aptos Labs will continue to contribute additional product development services in collaboration with Decibel Foundation.
About Decibel Foundation
The Decibel Foundation is dedicated to advancing the Decibel Protocol, a decentralized non-custodial trading engine designed for high-performance, full-stack trading of perpetual and spot digital assets. The Decibel Foundation supports protocol development, governance, and ecosystem growth to drive the future of onchain capital markets.
Aptos is a next-generation Layer 1 blockchain. Aptos' breakthrough technology, scalable infrastructure and user safeguards are designed to power the next generation of financial systems by offering unparalleled high throughput and low latency that can scale to billions of users.
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