Aptos has announced the introduction of MonoMove, a new execution engine designed to dramatically accelerate Move smart contract execution within its blockchain ecosystem. Aptos, an independent Layer 1 blockchain network focused on performance and security enhancements, revealed the upgrade in a series of posts on X, stating that its internal tests showed certain workloads executing up to 55 times faster compared to previous versions.
MonoMove targets efficiency gains for Move smart contracts
The MonoMove upgrade centers on optimizing both the Move Virtual Machine (VM) and its surrounding execution stack. Internal Aptos benchmarks have signaled significant performance improvements, but these results have yet to be validated on the mainnet. The company indicated that MonoMove’s enhancements would particularly impact financial applications such as vaults, lending platforms, payment systems, and on-chain markets built on its network.
To demonstrate MonoMove’s capabilities, Aptos tested the new engine by replaying real transaction data from DecibelTrade, an on-chain trading exchange. The benchmarks included collateral withdrawals, vault requests, perpetual market interactions, and order placements. Varying results emerged depending on transaction type, with collateral withdrawals reaching up to 55x faster execution, vault requests achieving 40x, perpetual market operations 38x, and order placements 22x faster speeds.
These figures represent only execution speed within the VM and do not indicate overall network transaction throughput. As a result, improvements observed in internal testing may not fully translate to the mainnet, since other architectural factors could limit end-to-end performance.
| Transaction Type | Performance Increase |
|---|---|
| Collateral Withdrawals | 55x |
| Vault Requests | 40x |
| Perpetual Market Requests | 38x |
| Order Placement | 22x |
Mini dictionary: Move Virtual Machine (VM) – A specialized execution environment developed by Aptos for running programmable smart contracts written in the Move programming language, designed for flexibility and security in blockchain transactions.
Aptos emphasized that further independent testing will be necessary before claiming definitive performance gains on the live blockchain. The MonoMove upgrade remains in development as the team works towards implementation within the Aptos execution engine.
Leadership highlights and future roadmap
Aptos CEO and co-founder Avery Ching shared additional insights about the MonoMove engine, calling it “the biggest leap forward in smart contract development to date.” Ching stated that production workloads at DecibelTrade saw execution speeds nearly 10 times faster, and that certain Move micro-benchmarks recorded more than 50 times improvement. He also noted that the upgrade was designed with safety and formal verification as guiding principles, although the performance results must be confirmed by third-party reviewers.
MonoMove is described as a full redesign of the smart contract execution model, aiming to improve transaction performance by orders of magnitude compared to previous solutions, while focusing on improved user experience and security guarantees.
Aptos reported that further testing with a range of financial workloads, spanning order books, lending protocols, and payment rails, revealed up to 11x greater end-to-end throughput compared to the network’s existing virtual machine. The company highlighted that these tests did not include additional optimizations or the use of Block-STM, Aptos’s own parallel execution technique.
Mini dictionary: Block-STM – A parallel execution protocol developed by Aptos, allowing multiple transactions to be processed simultaneously to improve overall network throughput and scalability.
Internal benchmarks simulating complex financial workloads showed up to 11x higher end-to-end throughput with MonoMove, suggesting contract execution may no longer be the performance bottleneck on Aptos’s platform.
Aptos mentioned that as execution speed improves, storage may emerge as the new bottleneck for network performance, meaning gains at the contract layer will not always directly generate similar advances in total transaction volume supported by the system.
Mainnet release and governance requirements
The Aptos MonoMove Upgrade continues to follow the rules established by the Move language for safety, with runtime validation built to detect errors in both the virtual machine and its verifier. Aptos intends to conduct differential testing between MonoMove and the current execution engine to further evaluate reliability.
The comprehensive feature set for MonoMove is scheduled to reach completion by the end of 2026, with mainnet launch targeted for 2027. Implementation will require approval through a governance vote by the Aptos community, though an exact date for this proposal and the mainnet debut is yet to be specified. Until then, all performance findings are limited to Aptos’s internal testing environment.
MonoMove’s introduction comes as Aptos pushes forward on infrastructure development to support payment, stablecoin, and additional financial use cases. In May 2026, Aptos partnered with BDACS to foster growth within the KRW1 stablecoin ecosystem, which is anchored to the Korean Won. The platform has also developed an encrypted mempool solution to address transaction privacy, aiming to reduce front-running and activities linked to MEV (maximal extractable value).
Alongside these advancements, Aptos recently surpassed 4.5 billion total transactions on its network, underscoring the platform’s increasing activity and ongoing focus on scalability.
