On September 18, 2025, Changpeng Zhao posted a striking chart. It wasn't about Bitcoin or BNB, but the price trend of the native token of ASTER, a decentralized perpetual exchange. This chart marked ASTER's debut, signaling the platform's official entry into the market.
Zhao's tweet was short and powerful: "Well done! A good start. Keep it up!" Within hours, the price of ASTER's token surged by 400% compared to its issuance price. This strong performance sent a clear signal: the former Binance CEO was not only congratulating the platform on its successful launch but also declaring the imminent start of fierce competition with Hyperliquid.
As Hyperliquid's HYPE token continuously hit new highs, Zhao's tweet was like a precision strike, conveying that Binance's strategic layout in the decentralized perpetual contract trading market was fully activated. Although Zhao cannot directly operate Binance, he is clearly not bound by market rules; instead, he is supporting Hyperliquid's competitor, ASTER, fueling this market dominance battle.
The Birth and Development of ASTER
ASTER's origins can be traced back to December 2024, resulting from the merger of the DeFi protocols Astherus and APX Finance. This integration not only optimized trading infrastructure but also set its sights on the industry leader, Hyperliquid, vowing to secure a place in the perpetual contract market.
ASTER is a multi-chain decentralized exchange supporting networks like BNB Chain, Ethereum, Solana, and Arbitrum. Through cross-chain liquidity aggregation, ASTER provides users with a seamless trading experience without the need for manual cross-chain operations. Since its launch in March 2025, ASTER has processed over $514 billion in trading volume for more than 2 million users. Although its Total Value Locked (TVL) briefly peaked at $2 billion after the token issuance, it had fallen back to $655 million by September 2025, indicating that the market's attitude towards its long-term development remains to be seen.
Unlike decentralized exchanges that only offer spot trading, ASTER provides both spot trading and emphasizes its presence in the perpetual futures market. Its first listed trading pair was the native token ASTER/USDT.
Solving Trading Challenges and Liquidation Manipulation
ASTER's technical architecture focuses on solving the liquidity fragmentation problem faced by multi-chain DeFi. By aggregating cross-chain order book depth, ASTER can establish unified liquidity without requiring users to manually transfer cross-chain assets. Its unique "hidden order" system conceals the size and direction of orders before execution, effectively preventing issues like front-running and liquidation manipulation.
The platform's margin system supports both isolated and cross-margin trading. Users can use liquid staking tokens (like asBNB) or stablecoins as margin, benefiting from capital efficiency innovations that allow them to maintain active positions while earning passive income. Additionally, ASTER's core ecosystem stablecoin, USDF, provides users with deposit yields and serves as collateral for trading, forming a self-reinforcing liquidity system.
The Competitive Landscape: ASTER vs. Hyperliquid
The competition between ASTER and Hyperliquid is mainly reflected in their architectures and market strategies. Hyperliquid employs a custom Layer 1 blockchain, achieving performance comparable to centralized exchanges through a fully on-chain order book, with significant advantages especially in trade execution efficiency and user experience. However, this vertically integrated model confines it to a single ecosystem, making cross-chain expansion difficult.
ASTER, on the other hand, has chosen a multi-chain deployment to maximize its reach, leveraging existing DeFi ecosystem resources to meet the needs of users who prefer specific chains. Although technically more complex, this multi-chain strategy can create more capital efficiency opportunities through partners and integrated protocols (like Pendle and Venus). ASTER also holds a significant advantage in leverage configuration, with most trading pairs supporting 100x leverage, and specific assets capable of reaching up to 1001x leverage. In contrast, Hyperliquid's leverage is capped at 40x.
Furthermore, ASTER's US stock perpetual contract service extends beyond cryptocurrencies to traditional stock market trading, further expanding its market space.
Tokenomics and Market Strategy
ASTER's token economic model emphasizes community incentives and long-term sustainability. The total supply is 8 billion tokens, with 53.5% allocated for airdrops and community rewards, 30% for ecosystem development, 7% for the treasury, 5% allocated to the team, and 4.5% for liquidity and exchange listings. The proportion allocated to the community is among the highest in the DeFi space, ensuring that token value flows to actual users rather than a few early investors or team members.
The ASTER token serves multiple functions within the platform, including governance rights, fee discounts, staking rewards, and access to premium features. Additionally, a portion of trading fees will be used to buy back and potentially burn ASTER tokens, creating a deflationary pressure.
Conclusion: The Future of ASTER
ASTER is undoubtedly a rising star, equipped with multi-chain liquidity, strong ecosystem partners, and innovative capital efficiency mechanisms. However, despite its strong initial performance, the sharp decline in TVL also exposes the sustainability challenges it faces. In the short term, whether ASTER can surpass Hyperliquid to become the new leader in decentralized perpetual contract trading remains to be seen.
ASTER's success will depend on its ability to break market inertia and attract sufficient long-term users, especially when facing a proven competitor like Hyperliquid. Binance's support provides ASTER with a significant ecosystem advantage, but whether the platform can gain market recognition based on its decentralized merits, independent of centralized forces, will depend on its ability to maintain and expand its liquidity pools and avoid the risks of short-term bubbles.
