Binance founder CZ(CZ) created a celebrity effect on the evening of November 2nd: he used approximately $2 million of his personal funds to buy ASTER, a token of the centralized derivatives exchange. The news spread throughout the community on X (formerly Twitter) within minutes, and the price of ASTER immediately surged by more than 20%, bringing the opportunities and risks brought by celebrity investment to the forefront.
CZ's move instantly ignited the market.
CZ revealed the transaction details through a Binance Square post , emphasizing that the purchase was entirely funded by his personal funds, and added a catchphrase:
"I'm not a trader, I buy and hold."
The market interpreted this 15-character message with great interest. Short-term traders quickly followed suit, and on-chain data showed that ASTER's trading volume surged several times in less than an hour after the announcement; the price peaked at 35%, and the volatility was enough to send adrenaline soaring in highly leveraged positions.
ASTER Potential
ASTER is currently positioned as a decentralized exchange token offering perpetual futures and spot trading. The system combines off-chain order books with on-chain settlement, aiming to attract liquidity with low transaction fees. The white paper reveals that ASTER's total supply is as high as 8 billion tokens, a significant portion of which is still held in centralized addresses. The key challenge lies in whether the future unlocking pace can keep up with market absorption capacity.
To mitigate concerns about potential sell-offs, the team has added buyback and burn mechanisms, but concerns remain that past trading volumes have been questioned as inflated, and the true demand needs to be verified. Facing competitors like Hyperliquid, ASTER will not have an easy time standing out in the fiercely competitive DEX market.
Can the BNB example be replicated?
CZ also brought up his purchase of BNB during the ICO eight years ago. With the expansion of the Binance ecosystem, the token's price increased hundreds of times, becoming a classic case. Whether mentioning BNB at this time implies that he is making a long-term investment has attracted the attention of investors.
Based on a review of successful long-term BNB holding cases , the key lies in diverse application scenarios and deflationary mechanisms.
While ASTER also runs on the BNB chain and is backed by CZ, the project is still in its early stages, and its functionality and competitive advantages are far inferior to BNB's current position. In other words, CZ's bet this time is more like boosting new startups within the BNB ecosystem, with both rewards and risks significantly amplified.
From BNB's past experience to ASTER today, CZ has once again demonstrated the power of a single action to alter the narrative. After the hype dies down, the market will eventually return to examining the project's fundamentals. For each investor, the ability to remain calm amidst the noise will determine the ultimate return on this crypto adventure.
