In the fiercely competitive Perp Dex market, Aster's performance was undoubtedly one of the most eye-catching events of 2025. Backed by the powerful resources of the Binance ecosystem, Aster took an extremely aggressive stance, quickly rewriting the market landscape through record trading volumes and radical incentive plans.

However, this rapid rise, built on the back of a massive future token inflation “debt,” raises a crucial question: what happens when the incentive carnival ends and the music stops? Is this manufactured boom a brilliant strategy for sustainable liquidity, or a fragile illusion?

This article will deeply analyze Aster's past, present and future, explore its evolution from the pragmatic exploration of ApolloX to today's market challenger, and focus on analyzing the severe challenges it faces after the "brushing" craze.

Part 1: A Competitor's Bloodline: From ApolloX's Innovation to Aster's Rise

1.1 The Origin of ApolloX: A Hybrid Model Built for Performance

ApolloX was initially launched in 2021, aiming to bridge the gap between the smooth experience of centralized exchanges (CEXs) and the self-custody of decentralized finance (DeFi). Its V1 version adopted a hybrid architecture of "off-chain matching + on-chain settlement." This design prioritized trading performance and responsiveness, successfully attracting users accustomed to CEX operations while ensuring the non-custodial security of funds through smart contracts.

1.2 Strategic Transformation: Embracing Full On-Chain and ALP Liquidity Pool

With the maturity of DeFi infrastructure and the rise of GMX, ApolloX V2 has transitioned to a fully on-chain model, centered around the ALP (ApolloX Liquidity Provider) liquidity pool. This pool, comprised of a variety of mainstream assets (such as stablecoins, BTC, and ETH), serves as the direct counterparty for all traders on the platform. This shift significantly improves capital efficiency and transaction transparency, while also ensuring price accuracy and effectively preventing market manipulation by integrating a dual oracle system of Binance and Chainlink.

1.3 Key Integration: Merging with Astherus to Inject “Real Returns” Gene

At the end of 2024, APX Finance (formerly ApolloX) and yield protocol Astherus announced a strategic merger, marking a decisive step in Aster's evolution. Astherus's focus on maximizing "real yield" brought two core innovations to the combined entity (perhaps inspired by Ethena):

• asBNB: A liquid staking derivative of BNB that allows users to use BNB as trading margin while earning BNB staking rewards.
• USDF: An interest-bearing stablecoin backed by a delta-neutral strategy designed to generate passive income for holders.

This merger gave rise to Aster's signature "Trade & Earn" model. Traders' margin is no longer idle capital, but an interest-bearing asset that can continuously generate income. This significantly improves capital efficiency and creates a strong competitive barrier.

Aster's strategy extends beyond BNB Chain to multiple major blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Arbitrum. It positions itself as a liquidity aggregator, aiming to address liquidity fragmentation in DeFi by enabling users to trade across different chains without requiring a cross-chain bridge. This final rebranding and multi-chain expansion reflects the current competitive landscape, where the fight for liquidity requires superior interoperability and the courage to directly challenge leading players on other chains.

Part 2: Deconstructing the Engine: A Technical Deep Dive into the Aster Architecture

2.1 Bimodal Architecture: A Dual Approach to Market Segmentation

Aster's architecture cleverly reflects a deep understanding of market segmentation, offering two distinct trading modes designed to capture the entire user spectrum, from professional traders to high-risk retail investors. This is a classic CEX strategy applied in the DEX space.

Professional Mode (Order Book Perpetual Contracts): This mode utilizes a centralized limit order book (CLOB) mechanism, providing a CEX-like trading environment for experienced traders and institutions. It supports advanced order types, offers deep liquidity from deeply bonded professional market makers, and charges highly competitive fees.

Simple Mode (1001x): This mode, based on the AMM-style ALP liquidity pool, provides retail and thrill-seeking Degen traders with a simplified one-click trading experience with up to 1001x leverage. It features zero slippage and zero opening fees, but has a cap on profits to manage the risk of the ALP pool.

This dual-mode architecture enables Aster to simultaneously serve two distinct user groups, maximizing its total addressable market (TAM). A trader who gets liquidated due to 1001x leverage in Simple Mode has vastly different needs and behaviors than a trader who meticulously manages risk in Professional Mode. By catering to both user groups, Aster avoids alienating either by narrowly focusing on a single product.

2.2 Capital Efficiency and “Real Returns”: Technical Implementation of USDF and asBNB

Aster's "trading is mining, holding earns" model, powered by two innovative assets, USDF and asBNB, is a profitable platform. This model transforms the opportunity cost of providing margin (a major friction point in DeFi) into a source of income, creating a strong incentive for users to lock up capital within the Aster ecosystem.

• USDF stablecoin: USDF is a fully collateralized stablecoin minted 1:1 with assets such as USDT. Its core mechanism is that the underlying collateral is deployed in delta-neutral trading strategies (for example, holding a long spot position and a short perpetual contract) to generate returns, which are then distributed to USDF holders.
• Technical Explanation: A delta-neutral strategy aims to create a portfolio with zero delta, meaning its value is insensitive to small changes in the underlying asset's price. This is typically achieved by holding a long spot position and an equal short perpetual futures position. Returns are primarily derived from the positive funding rate paid by longs to shorts.
• asBNB Liquid Staking: asBNB is a liquidity staking token. Users stake BNB and receive asBNB, which serves as margin for Aster trading while continuing to accrue BNB staking rewards (and potential Launchpool/Megadrop rewards). This allows a single asset to generate multiple income streams simultaneously, greatly improving capital efficiency.

In traditional derivatives trading, margin is "dead capital," used only to secure positions. Astherus' core innovation lies in the creation of interest-bearing collateral. By integrating this mechanism, Aster allows a single unit of capital to simultaneously: a) serve as margin; b) earn staking returns (as BNB); c) earn returns from delta-neutral strategies (USDF); and d) earn airdrop points. This creates an extremely sticky ecosystem, making capital less likely to leave, as leaving would mean forgoing multiple income streams. This directly addresses the "mercenary capital" problem that plagued early DeFi protocols.

2.3 Innovations in Privacy and Fairness: Hidden Orders and Anti-MEV Mechanisms

Aster integrates iceberg-like single functions at the protocol level to improve transaction fairness and privacy, attempting to solve two core pain points of on-chain transactions: maximum extractable value (MEV) and information leakage.

• Hidden Orders: Hidden orders are limit orders (similar to iceberg orders) that are completely invisible on the public order book until they are executed. These orders are submitted directly to the core matching engine, sharing liquidity with visible orders but completely concealing the trader's intentions.
• Technical Background: This function is equivalent to an on-chain "dark pool", which aims to protect large traders from front-running, sandwich attacks, and malicious liquidation by MEV robots. However, this is still different from "real dark pool trading".
• Simple Mode MEV Resistance: Simple Mode is advertised as MEV-resistant. This is likely achieved through a variety of mechanisms, such as frequent oracle price updates from multiple sources (Python, Chainlink, Binance Oracle), and possibly transaction batching or the use of a private mempool, which prevent MEV bots from inserting trades to exploit price slippage.

Part 3: Binance Connection: The “Agent” Valuation Theory

3.1 Tracking Fund Flows: Strategic Investment from YZi Labs

Aster’s connection to the Binance ecosystem is deep-rooted, and its funding and development support clearly point to Binance’s strategic intentions.

• Direct investments: Records show that Binance Labs participated in ApolloX’s seed round in June 2022. Subsequently, YZi Labs invested in Astherus in November 2024.
• Strategic Timing: The timing of the Astherus investment (November 2024) coincided with Hyperliquid's rapid rise and posed a significant threat to Binance's derivatives market dominance. This suggests that the investment was a strategic and defensive move.
• Ecosystem Support: This investment goes far beyond funding; it also includes mentorship, technical and marketing resources, and ecosystem exposure, ultimately establishing Aster as the “#1 Perp DEX on BNB Chain.”

3.2 The “CZ Effect”: Interpreting Public Endorsements as Strategic Signals

CZ's public support has injected unparalleled market credibility and attention into Aster. His behavior pattern goes far beyond the ordinary celebrity effect and is more like a well-thought-out strategic signal.

• Public Promotion: CZ has posted on Twitter several times to congratulate Aster on its Token Generation Event (TGE) and promote the project. As analysts note, “CZ rarely shares charts,” making his promotion of ASTER an important market signal.
• Narrative Construction: CZ's statements, such as highlighting Aster's hidden order feature as a solution to the margin call manipulation issues found in "other on-chain DEXs," directly position Aster as a superior option to competitors like Hyperliquid. He also claimed that Aster's status as the second-largest holder of BSC-USDT further expands the project's potential.
• Market Impact: The “CZ Effect” was immediate, with the ASTER token price surging over 400% shortly after his initial post, fueling the narrative that “Aster is Binance’s weapon against Hyperliquid.”

3.3 Comparative Analysis of API Design

Aster's API structure design reveals its strategic intentions that are consistent with Binance CEX.

• Structural similarity: The structure and naming conventions of the API documentation in the official GitHub repository (asterdex/api-docs) are highly indicative. The documentation is divided into aster-finance-futures-api.md and aster-finance-spot-api.md. This division mirrors the API structure of CEXs like Binance, which also have modules for spot, futures, and leveraged trading.
• Implications for market makers: This standardized, CEX-like API structure is no coincidence. It's designed to significantly reduce onboarding friction for professional market makers and algorithmic trading firms already integrated with Binance. By providing a familiar API, Aster encourages these key liquidity providers to integrate into its ecosystem with minimal development overhead. This demonstrates a strategy to bootstrap liquidity from Binance's existing network of professional traders.

3.4 New Valuation Framework: Viewing Aster as a Function of Binance’s Market Cap

Taken together, the above evidence—direct investment, strategic timing, consistent public outreach by the founders, deep ecosystem integration, and a familiar API structure—supports the conclusion that Aster is a strategic proxy for Binance.

Valuing Aster equivalent to Hyperliquid is a classification error. Hyperliquid's value stems from its independent L1 technology and protocol revenue. Aster's value, on the other hand, is comprised of its protocol revenue combined with the significant strategic premium it brings as a native extension of Binance DeFi. Its valuation should be viewed as a parameter of Binance's market capitalization, reflecting its importance in defending Binance's market share and expanding the Binance ecosystem into the on-chain world.

Aster is a key component of Binance's post-compliance defense strategy. It allows the Binance ecosystem to aggressively compete in the on-chain derivatives space while creating a crucial regulatory barrier between heavily scrutinized CEXs and "decentralized" protocols. Following a 2024 settlement with US authorities, Binance faced intense regulatory oversight, and CZ himself was banned from holding an executive position at a CEX. Meanwhile, the rise of on-chain perpetual swaps, led by Hyperliquid, posed an existential threat, attracting the most sophisticated and DeFi-native traders. Binance could not simply launch its own "Binance Perpetual DEX" without incurring immediate and overwhelming regulatory action.

The solution is to operate through a proxy. YZi Labs, CZ's family office, provides the perfect vehicle for investment and guidance, while also offering plausible deniability. Aster, built on BNB Chain, directly benefits from Binance's core L1. Designed to feel and function like Binance (API, UI), it offers a frictionless off-ramp for Binance's existing user base and market makers. Thus, Aster strategically plays a role in "regulatory arbitrage." It projects Binance's power and liquidity into the DeFi space without expanding Binance's formal regulatory boundaries.

Part 4: Manufactured Boom: The Game Theory and Consequences of Incentivized Trading Volume

4.1 On-chain Data Analysis: Quantitative Wash Trading

The most telling metric is the ratio of trading volume to total value locked (TVL) and open interest (OI). At its peak, Aster's 24-hour trading volume reached a staggering $36 billion to $70 billion, while its OI was only $1.25 billion. Its trading volume to TVL ratio was approximately 19, indicating "extremely aggressive wash trading."

The surge in trading volume is clearly linked to Aster’s aggressive airdrop points program (“Rh Points”), which rewards trading volume, holding time, and profits and losses.

4.2 A Necessary Evil?: The Strategic Logic of Guiding Liquidity

This artificially created trading volume is a necessary but temporary measure. The logic is a classic guide flywheel:

1. No volume, no attention: A new DEX with no volume is like a ghost town, unable to attract liquidity.
2. Incentivizing Volume Generation: Airdrops create strong incentives for users to generate large but artificial trading volume.
3. Attracting market makers: This high volume, even if fake, makes the platform appear to be very active. This is crucial for attracting professional market makers who are looking for a high-traffic venue to deploy their strategies.
4. Real liquidity enters the market: As market makers come on board, they provide deep, real liquidity and tighten spreads.
5. Attracting real traders: The combination of deep liquidity, low fees, and a great user experience ultimately attracts organic, non-incentive-driven traders.

By taking the top spot in transaction volume rankings on the data platform, Aster forced its way into the market and accelerated its process of gaining market recognition.

This is a very smart calculation, using $320 million in Aster (4% supply) as stage 2 incentives and about $600 million in forward token incentives to maintain a $3 billion market capitalization (15 billion FDV).

4.3 Future debt: assessing long-term consequences

The main consequence of this strategy is the “future debt” created by the massive airdrop allocation (53.5% of the total supply). This creates a large overhang of tokens that will be distributed to mining users, who have a high propensity to sell, thus generating constant selling pressure.

To mitigate this "debt," the protocol has designed an extremely long vesting schedule. The TGE unlocked 8.8% (704 million ASTER), with the remaining airdrop allocation to be released linearly over 80 months. This long vesting period is a key mechanism designed to mitigate the impact of selling pressure by spreading it out over a long period of time.

While strategically effective, overt wash trading has led to labels like "Hyperliquid's Temu" and raised concerns about market manipulation. The key challenge is successfully transitioning from artificial incentive-driven trading volume to sustainable organic activity before rewards dry up and mining users leave.

The massive airdrop and the resulting wash trading volume is a calculated, high-stakes gamble that leverages game theory to address the cold start problem of DEX liquidity. Aster's incentive approach, similar to Dydx, targets not only liquidity providers but also traders and market makers. By rewarding raw trading volume, it creates the appearance of a highly active and liquid market. This public signal (dominated by the DeFiLlama chart) is intended to attract the true drivers of liquidity: professional market makers.

The “future debt” of the airdrop is the cost of this marketing campaign. The bet is that by the time the debt matures (i.e., the tokens are fully “distributed”), the platform will have attracted enough real liquidity and organic trading flow (“externalities”) to absorb the selling pressure.

This is a race against time, so we have to take a high-profile approach because we are forced by the situation and the model.

Part V: Challenges to Aster’s Financial Stability

5.1 Challenge 1: User Retention in the Post-Incentive Era

The current trading volume driven by airdrop expectations is unsustainable. Once rewards are reduced or terminated, Aster's biggest challenge will be retaining users, market makers, and liquidity. DeFi history is replete with examples of rapid declines due to incentive exhaustion.

Aster's breakthrough lies in its ability to leverage its unique product advantages—such as the high capital efficiency of interest-bearing asset collateralization, the hidden order feature that protects large investors, and a dual-mode design that serves both professional and retail users—to successfully transform incentive-driven "airdrop hunters" into loyal users who truly recognize the product's value. This is a race against time; the protocol must establish a healthy ecosystem driven by real revenue and organic demand before the "future debt" (i.e., the selling pressure caused by airdrops) matures. This raises the philosophical question of which comes first, trading or liquidity?

Token incentives are two-way. When the price is high, high incentives > costs, so it will attract many market makers, studios, traders, etc. to pay fees, contribute to trading volume, and achieve "discounted coin purchases."

However, as more and more incentive tokens are created, the circulating supply in the market will increase. Whether transaction fee income can maintain or even increase token prices becomes a question mark. When incentives are reduced, transaction fee income decreases, trading volume decreases, token prices further decrease, and incentives further decrease. This cycle repeats, and it won’t be long before the platform falls into a negative cycle.

The core of an exchange is liquidity (especially when the Clob model replicates the CEX algorithm)—which requires the deep participation of multiple market makers. However, Aster's current incentive mechanism doesn't seem to align their interests. Hyperliquid understands this principle and is committed to aligning the interests of various market makers through APIs, revenue, and even validator nodes. Achieving sustainable returns beyond just revenue is the goal of any DEX.

One more thing to say is that the essence of Hyperliquid is a "liquidity distribution center" disguised as Perp Dex - to put it in a more down-to-earth way, with this liquidity architecture, what can't be done?

Starting with transaction data, and going beyond it, we can understand that DEX and tokens are infrastructure that prioritizes liquidity, followed by transactions. In this construction process, tokens serve as tokens of investment first, and then as rewards.

5.2 Challenge 2: Algorithms and Systemic Risks in the Market

High leverage and high open interest are the sword of Damocles hanging over all derivatives exchanges, and some of Aster's mechanism designs may have exacerbated these risks.

The inherent fragility of the ALP model: In a simple model, the ALP pool acts as the counterparty to all traders, meaning that if traders as a whole consistently profit, LPs face significant losses. Furthermore, the model relies entirely on external oracle pricing; any delay or manipulation of the oracle could have disastrous consequences for the pool.

The specter of cascading liquidations and automatic position deleveraging: When large-scale, one-way "crowded trades" occur in the market (especially for small-cap, highly controlled altcoins), a single sharp price fluctuation can trigger cascading liquidations. Due to the lack of a public and sufficient insurance fund mechanism, Aster relies on automatic position deleveraging (ADL) as a last resort in extreme situations. The ADL mechanism forcibly liquidates profitable users' opposing positions to offset system losses. While this maintains the protocol's solvency, it is extremely unfair to profitable users. Once triggered, it could lead to a massive crisis of confidence and capital flight, potentially causing a "bank run."

The endgame of manipulation in small-cap altcoins: Due to the lack of transparency in positions and insufficient liquidity, incidents like Jelly are highly likely to occur again, especially for platforms that rely heavily on dedicated market makers (with the exception of Aster, which have limited depth), which can leave them unable to manage their own operations. When prices break through the depth of the order book, a liquidity vacuum emerges, and users are faced with a free fall.

CEX algorithms can't replicate those of DEXs: CEX contract algorithms (especially funding rates, margin ratios, leverage ratios corresponding to open positions, liquidation processes, etc.) are designed based on the exchange's own conditions (such as MM, liquidity base, and even insurance funds). Aster's current mechanisms and liquidity conditions clearly don't meet these "preconditions." (Example: https://x.com/agintender/status/1969992819734724632)

5.3 Challenge 3: Trust Deficit in Decentralized Narratives

The sword hanging over the token: Extreme concentration of 96% of the token supply: On-chain data shows that approximately six wallets control as much as 96% of the total $ASTER supply. This extremely centralized ownership structure undermines its "community-first" narrative and poses significant systemic risks, including potential threats such as price manipulation and governance capture.

A terrifying boomerang: When the price of a token can no longer be maintained, the community may react against the founders and spokespersons. Even the slightest negative sentiment will be amplified infinitely.

Conclusion: Giant Agents at the Crossroads

Aster’s story is a complex microcosm of the current stage of DeFi development: it is both a protocol that is quite innovative in capital efficiency and product design, and a strategic pawn driven by centralized giants behind the scenes to reshape the market landscape.

In its past, it saw a clear evolution from pragmatism to innovation; in its present, it's a grand extravaganza driven by capital and incentives. However, its future is fraught with uncertainty. After the false prosperity brought about by inflated traffic fades, Aster must prove to the market that it can retain users through genuine product value and effectively manage its inherent systemic risks and trust deficit. Whether it can successfully transform from an incentive-based ecosystem to a platform driven by real revenue and organic demand will be the key to its ultimate success or failure.

Aster's future trajectory hinges on its ability to convert its artificial momentum into sustainable organic growth before its "future liabilities" mature. However, as a spinoff of the Binance ecosystem, Aster has many untapped opportunities. For example, being able to mechanically bind to market makers (Aster Chain) or becoming an alpha outpost for Binance Futures would be very interesting.

There are no perfect solutions in development, only the courage and tenacity to learn to coexist with problems. I look forward to Aster's subsequent moves.

Below human nature and above interests lies the mechanism.