For professional traders, it offers hidden orders to protect against MEV attacks; for retail investors, it allows one-click access to 1001x leverage to chase the meme coin wave—Aster simultaneously caters to two distinct worlds with one code. This innovative dual-mode design, coupled with a series of product developments and positioning, has distinguished it from the fierce competition in decentralized derivatives platforms, rapidly rising to become a leading player that cannot be ignored.
Strongly enter the forefront of the Perp DEX track
Perpetual DEX has become the fastest-growing and most promising sector in the DeFi market. Compared to traditional spot DEXs, Perpetual DEX allows users to execute long and short positions through leverage, providing a trading experience similar to that of centralized exchanges (CEXs), while retaining the key advantages of decentralization: permissionless, censorship-resistant, non-custodial, and no KYC (Know Your Customer)/AML (Anti-Money Laundering) requirements.
As of September 2025, the average monthly trading volume of Perp DEX has reached US$333.4 billion, and the DEX/CEX futures trading volume ratio has also risen to nearly 10%. Behind this is the strong demand of users for efficient, transparent and secure Perp chain transactions.
However, this sector still faces inherent challenges, such as fragmented liquidity, poor user experience, and protocol performance being constrained by the underlying public chain. It is against this backdrop that Aster has attracted market attention with its unique solutions.
Aster provides Perp and spot trading, and is committed to creating a one-stop on-chain trading platform for global cryptocurrency traders. Its product philosophy is reflected in its deep insight into the user base. Through a set of technical architecture, it meets the needs of both types of users at the same time, setting a precedent in the DEX track.
Perpetual is a hunting ground for professional players, and is tailored specifically for professional traders, quantitative institutions, and API users. It uses the same centralized limit order book (CLOB) as the mainstream CEX mechanism, bringing deep liquidity and minimizing slippage, especially in trading mainstream currency pairs such as BTC/USDT.
For high-frequency traders, Aster also provides advanced tools such as API access and automated grid trading. Notably, Aster fully incorporates its "privacy-first" principles into its product development process, including the development of a "Hidden Orders" feature that helps traders execute large orders without revealing their strategies, effectively preventing on-chain front-running and MEV (maximum extractable value) attacks. This feature provides professional traders with CEX-like trading protection on a highly transparent chain.
Compared to Perpetual, the 1001x model is more like a public playground, dedicated to serving a wider range of retail investors. This model, based on the ALP (Aster Liquidity Pool), offers a smooth, one-click trading experience with no deposit required. Furthermore, it offers up to 1001x leverage in a "Degen Mode," suitable for traders seeking quick position building and high risk-reward scenarios, such as immediately betting on a Meme coin's surge.
Aster's dual-mode design effectively addresses Perp DEX's long-standing user growth challenges. Traditional Perp DEXs typically have to choose one user group over another, such as dYdX, which focuses on professional users, and GMX, which focuses on retail users. By integrating these two models, Aster has created a closed loop for user retention: 1001x attracts new users with a low barrier to entry, while once their trading skills mature, they can seamlessly transition to Perpetual. This design not only significantly optimizes the user experience but also reflects the project's deep understanding of the increasingly diverse DeFi user profile.
Can Aster become the next Hyperliquid?
In the Perp DEX market, Hyperliquid has emerged as a leader thanks to its unwavering commitment to performance. The secret lies in its "sovereign L1" strategy. Hyperliquid chose to build an L1 from scratch using the HyperBFT consensus mechanism, achieving a TPS (Transactions Per Second) of 200,000 and sub-second transaction confirmation.
Hyperliquid's "vertically integrated" model achieves a highly transparent on-chain order book by controlling the entire technology stack from consensus to order book. Every order, cancellation, transaction and liquidation can be publicly verified.
As Sun Tzu's Art of War states, "A skilled warrior seeks advantage in the moment." Aster's strategy demonstrates the wisdom of leveraging momentum, fully aware of the challenges of building a new L1 and convincing users to migrate. Therefore, Aster employed a clever "Trojan Horse" strategy, choosing to launch within the BNB Chain ecosystem, which boasts a massive user base and deep liquidity.
This choice gave Aster significant Go-To-Market (GTM) advantages: First, it gained immediate traffic support, eliminating the need for a difficult user cold start. Second, by partnering with leading protocols in the BNB Chain ecosystem, such as PancakeSwap and SafePal, Aster quickly established brand trust and distribution channels. For example, its liquid staking token, asBNB, and native stablecoin, USDF, directly leveraged BNB Chain's existing infrastructure. By leveraging this momentum, Aster significantly reduced the initial challenges of its development.
On July 31st, Aster announced the launch of Aster Chain, a high-performance, privacy-first ZK L1. This announcement further underscored its underlying strategic plan: BNB Chain is essentially a transitional "incubation platform," while the upcoming massive token airdrop is the key to its successful "Trojan Horse" operation. This will provide ample financial incentive for users to migrate from BNB Chain to the future Aster Chain, thereby internalizing the "borrowed" traffic and liquidity as the underlying assets of its own "sovereign" protocol. If successful, this could be considered one of the most ingenious GTM strategies in DeFi history.
Hyperliquid and Aster represent two distinct Perp DEX development paths. Hyperliquid is a technology pioneer, vying for professional traders with cutting-edge performance. Aster, on the other hand, is a strategy pioneer, leveraging community penetration and product innovation to establish a foothold within a mature ecosystem before pursuing performance breakthroughs.
According to DeFiLlama, Aster's TVL is nearly $670 million, including locked-in USDF, multi-chain assets, and various liquidity pools. This reflects Aster's strategic ambition: its ambition is not limited to becoming a leader in the Perp DEX market, but to becoming a "one-stop" liquidity aggregation layer.
Product Innovation and Ecological Alliance
Inefficient capital management is a common pain point faced by most DeFi protocols. Typically, when users open a position on Perp DEX, their margin is locked and unable to generate additional returns.
Aster's groundbreaking design addresses this issue by allowing users to use both liquid staking tokens (such as asBNB) and the native yield-generating stablecoin USDF as collateral. This allows users to "kill two birds with one stone": earning staking rewards while also leveraging interest-bearing assets for leveraged trading. For example, users can earn ecosystem staking rewards by holding asBNB while also using it as margin to open positions. Aster's unwavering commitment to capital efficiency unlocks another dimension of profitability for traders.
USDF, a delta-neutral stablecoin, further anchors BNB Chain's TVL. Aster has developed a special Trade & Earn feature to encourage users to use USDF as collateral, providing a complete closed-loop trading and financial management system. According to the platform's latest data, the APY for USDF deposits is 4.5%, while the APY for USDF trading activities is 12.2%, totaling a whopping 16.7%. This yield is clearly very attractive in current market conditions. Theoretically, the more users trade, the higher their earnings will be. This enhanced wealth effect has also fueled the steady growth of Aster's TVL.
This innovation further aligns with Aster's strategic positioning as the "liquidity layer" of the DeFi ecosystem. By deeply integrating Perp DEX with two promising sectors: LSD-Fi (liquidity-collateralized derivatives finance) and yield-generating stablecoins, Aster becomes a hub, providing deep liquidity and diverse application scenarios for other protocols. Furthermore, USDF, as a yield-generating stablecoin, generates income through a delta-neutral position, creating a new revenue stream for users while also empowering Aster with autonomy over its core infrastructure, further strengthening the independence and stability of its ecosystem.
Another unique feature of Aster is 24/7 Stock Perp, which allows users to trade on-chain derivatives of large-cap stocks from traditional financial markets, such as Nvidia and Tesla. This feature bypasses the traditional stock market's trading hours, providing crypto-native users with a wider range of trading assets while also opening a gateway to on-chain trading for traditional financial users.
Aster brings traditional financial assets onto the blockchain, opening up a new path for the integration of crypto and traditional financial markets. However, while this innovation holds enormous opportunities, it also carries regulatory compliance risks, a potential challenge for Aster and similar platforms in their future development.
During the BNB Chain ecosystem's incubation period, Aster deeply penetrated the community through a series of strategic partnerships and formed strong alliances with other prominent projects. Upon its launch, Aster partnered with the on-chain credit protocol Creditlink, becoming the exclusive recipient of its CDL token airdrop and establishing close ties with the emerging on-chain credit sector. Furthermore, Aster joined Four.meme's token support program, providing traffic and channel support to the Meme project. The three projects also jointly hosted a trading competition.
Aster leverages its position in the BNB Chain "base camp" to bundle the two most promising and community-focused segments, on-chain credit and Meme culture, to launch a "combination punch" to accurately acquire traffic and users. Its deep community penetration and distribution strategy will also accumulate a valuable user base for future L1 migration.
TGE is a huge success: community first and long-term development
Aster's TGE (Token Generation Event) completed on September 17th, with impressive first-day performance. Official on-chain data shows that within 24 hours of its launch, $ASTER's total trading volume exceeded $340 million, with over 330,000 new unique wallet addresses added. The token opened at $0.03015 and reached an intraday high of $0.528, representing a single-day increase of approximately 2,154%.
Aster's token economics demonstrate a strong commitment to the community. The team plans to allocate 53.5% of the token supply to community airdrops to reward early contributors and traders. Of this total, 8.8% (704 million tokens) will be airdropped today to eligible users participating in the points program.
In an era of rampant airdrops, Aster CEO Leonard's statement that "signal over spectacle" is particularly striking. This statement signifies Aster's commitment to building an organic and sustainable community by giving back to "real participants." Aster's community-centric philosophy may become the cornerstone of its L1 strategy. Large-scale airdrops are not only incentives but also the key "economic factor" in attracting users to migrate to the Aster Chain. Tokens serve as the "ticket" for this L1 migration.
While the Aster team maintains a relatively low profile, the background of its long-term backers cannot be underestimated. Aster previously received investment from YZi Labs, a firm with a portfolio spanning multiple infrastructure and DeFi projects. The substantial support provided by this investor during the incubation process, including funding, strategy, and resource networks, is crucial to Aster's future development.
Aster's TGE may be the fuse for its long-term strategy. Its sophisticated GTM strategy, outstanding innovation capabilities, significant brand potential and strong ecological synergy have accumulated huge growth potential.
However, opportunities also present challenges. The biggest uncertainty currently lies in the L1 migration. If Aster Chain's performance, security, and user experience fail to meet expectations, or if the migration causes a community split, Aster's "Trojan Horse" strategy will risk failure. Furthermore, because Aster's product portfolio involves highly sensitive assets such as yield-generating stablecoins and Perp stocks, investors and users need to pay close attention to its information disclosure and observe the balance between innovation and compliance in related businesses going forward.
Whether Aster can maintain its popularity in the increasingly competitive Perp DEX track, or even defeat Hyperliquid, remains a question that will take time to answer, but what is certain is that it will give the DeFi community a wonderful answer on strategy, products and ecology.
