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Author: Thejaswini, Source: Token Dispatch, Compiled by: Shaw Bitchain Vision
On September 18, 2025, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) did something he rarely did: he posted a price chart that was not Bitcoin or BNB.
The chart shows the native token of the decentralized perpetual exchange that was just launched the day before.
“Good job! A good start. Keep working hard!” he said.
Within a few hours, the price of ASTER soared 400% from the issue price.The market clearly conveys the message that the former Binance CEO is not just congratulating him, he is also declaring war on Hyperliquid.
As HYPE token holders watched their Hyperliquid account value soar to an all-time high of around $60, CZ’s carefully planned tweet hit the target like a precise blow.The most influential figure in the cryptocurrency field, although banned from operating Binance, obviously still can influence the market.He is fully supporting Hyperliquid’s strongest competitor.
Behind the scenes, the war machine has been started long ago.YZi Labs (formerly known as Binance Labs) has been quietly funding the development of Aster.BNB Chain’s partner network is being launched.The world’s largest cryptocurrency empire is mobilizing against a decentralized upstart who dares to seize the market share of derivatives.
This is the opening remark of the endless decentralized exchange (DEX) war, and Binance is not going to lose.
What is Aster?
Aster was born in December 2024 and was formed by the merger of two major DeFi agreements.:Astherus is a multi-asset liquidity center focusing on income generation products,andAPX Finance is a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform.The merger creates a unified transaction infrastructure designed to compete directly with Hyperliquid’s growing market share.
The platform is a multi-chain decentralized exchange across BNB Chain, Ethereum, Solana and Arbitrum, brings together liquidity from multiple blockchains to enable seamless transactions without manual asset bridging.Since its launch in March 2025, Aster has processed more than $514 billion in transaction volume for 2 million users.After the token issuance, the platform’s total locked value (TVL) briefly exceeded US$2 billion, but it has fallen back to US$655 million as of September 2025.
Unlike many DEX platforms that focus on spot trading,Aster positiones itself as a comprehensive trading platform that provides spot and perpetual contract markets.While perpetual derivatives are still its core business, the platform also offers spot trading capabilities, with the first trading pair listed on it being its native token ASTER/USDT.For perpetual contracts, the platform provides both cryptocurrencies and traditional U.S. stock perpetual contracts, with most assets having a leverage ratio of up to 100 times, and some trading pairs having a leverage ratio of up to 1001 times in the so-called “degen mode”.
Technological innovation and characteristics
Aster’s architecture is committed to solving the problem of liquidity fragmentation that plagues multi-chain DeFi.Instead of forcing users to bridge assets across the network, the platform aggregates the depth of the cross-chain order book to create what is called “unified liquidity.”
The platform provides two different transaction interfaces, designed for different types of users.Simple modeIt provides one-click trading function and built-in MEV protection, so users can execute leveraged trading without browsing complex order books.Professional modelProvides an advanced trading environment with complete order book access, real-time charts and complex order types.
Aster’s “hidden order” system is one of its highlights, This function hides order size and direction before order execution.This dark pool-like function solves a key problem in on-chain transactions: preemptive transactions and clearing manipulation.Zhao Changpeng previously commented on this feature that it solved “common liquidation manipulation problems on other chains”.
The platform’s margin system supports independent and cross-collateralized transactions, allowing users to use liquid staking tokens such as asBNB or income stablecoins as margin.
This capital efficiency innovation allows traders to gain passive gains from their collateral while maintaining active trading positions.
The core of the Aster ecosystem is USDF, a profit-based stablecoin based on Delta’s neutral position.Users can mint USDF by depositing supported assets and then earn earnings as trading margin.This constructs a self-reinforced liquidity system, where stablecoin holders naturally become liquidity providers.
Looking ahead, Aster’s roadmap includes integrating zero-knowledge proofs for enhanced privacy, as well as developing the Layer 1 blockchain, Aster Chain, which is optimized for transactions.Zero-knowledge proof will allow traders to prove that they have sufficient margin or meet trading requirements without revealing their actual wallet balance, trading position or transaction history to other users or even verifiers.This technology enables truly private transactions, keeping the transparency required for risk management and liquidation while ensuring the confidentiality of position size, profit and loss and trading strategies.The Aster platform launched a beta test version for some traders in June 2025, laying the foundation for ultimate competition with Hyperliquid’s custom Layer 1 architecture.
Comparison between Aster and Hyperliquid
Aster and Hyperliquid comparison revealTwo different methods of decentralized perpetual contract trading.Hyperliquid builds its own Layer 1 blockchain from scratch, realizes sub-second final confirmation and full on-chain order book transactions, with performance comparable to centralized exchanges.This vertical integration gives Hyperliquid unrivalled speed and seamless user experience, but also limits it to a single ecosystem.
Aster has taken the opposite approach, operating across multiple mature blockchains, to maximize coverage and liquidity.While this brings some technical complexity, it enables Aster to leverage the existing DeFi ecosystem and serve users who prefer specific blockchains.
Hyperliquid dominates the DeFi perpetual contract market, accounting for about 70% of the shares, with open contracts worth $15 billion and daily trading volume continues to exceed $800 million.
However, Aster’s multi-chain strategy provides the advantage that Hyperliquid is difficult to replicate.The platform’s integration with earnings protocols such as Pendle and Venus creates capital efficiency opportunities that are unmatched by Hyperliquid’s isolated Layer 1.
Aster users can obtain BNB’s pledge rewards, USDT deposit income and transaction fees at the same time – this is a composability capability that is difficult to achieve in a single-chain solution.
There are also significant differences in leveraged products.Hyperliquid has a leverage limit of 40 times, while most Aster’s trading pairs have a leverage ratio of up to 100 times, and some specific assets have a leverage ratio of up to 1001 times.More importantly, Aster’s stock perpetual contracts provide 24/7 traditional stock market exposure, thus expanding the potential market beyond cryptocurrency native traders.
Track the token tracks
ASTER’s token economics embodies its active community allocation and long-term sustainability.The total supply of the project is 8 billion tokens, which will be distributed according to different categories:53.5% are used for airdrops and community rewards, 30% are used for ecosystem development, 7% are used for financial operations, 5% are used for team building, and 4.5% are used for liquidity and exchange listing.
The community allocation ratio ranks among the top in DeFi, exceeding 50% of the total supply.The allocation first airdropped 704 million tokens (8.8% of the total supply) to users participating in the pre-release activity.The unlocking plan first unlocks 25% immediately when the token generation activity is generated, followed by a three-month lock-up period, with the remainder being released linearly within nine months.
This token serves multiple functions in the ecosystem:Governance rights, fee discounts, pledge rewards, and advanced functional permissions.The revenue share is realized through fee repurchase, and some transaction fees are purchased and may destroy ASTER tokens. As the transaction volume increases, this will create deflationary pressure.
Users can pledge ASTER tokens while using the earning derivatives of these tokens as transaction collateral.This way, a single token position can create multiple value-added streams.
ASTER and HYPE: Token Economy Comparison
The comparison between ASTER and HYPE token economics reveals different ideas about value acquisition and distribution.
Hyperliquid’s HYPE token follows a more traditional crypto-economic model and is funded by protocol revenues to actively repurchase.The platform’s annual revenue exceeds $1 billion, most of which is used for HYPE token repurchases, creating strong deflationary pressure.
The core advantage of HYPE lies in its mature income repurchase mechanism.At present, the token’s stake rate has reached 43.4% of the total supply, and the agreement returns are huge, so the liquidity supply is strictly limited.This constitutes a powerful price support mechanism that ASTER is still unmatched.
HYPE faces a major challenge: Starting in November 2025, core contributors will unlock tokens on a large scale.Unlocking these tokens will bring huge selling pressure and may even overwhelm aggressive buyback plans.Hyperliquid is preparing to launch USDH stablecoins to generate additional buyback pressure, but the choice of timing brings uncertainty.
ASTER’s philosophy prioritizes community ownership over instant value acquisition.While this means that repurchases are less powerful in the short term, it creates stronger network effects and governance decentralization.The 53.5% community allocation ratio ensures that value ultimately belongs to actual users, not early investors or team members.
The revenue models are also different.Hyperliquid acquires value through transaction fees and clearing revenue on its proprietary Layer 1.Aster charges fees through multiple chains while using its capital efficiency function to earn profits.This diversified revenue model may be more resilient during market downturns.
Binance Strategy
Understanding Aster’s liquidity providers can reveal the strategic depth behind its launch.Professional market makers provide core order book depth, while the platform’s cross-chain architecture brings together liquidity from multiple blockchains.Strategic partnerships with agreements such as Pendle, ListaDAO, Kernel, Venus, YieldNest and PancakeSwap create additional sources of liquidity and user incentives.
Pendle supports income tokenization, ListaDAO provides liquid staking (generating asBNB), Venus provides lending services, and PancakeSwap is responsible for guiding arbitrage traffic from the largest DEX on the BNB chain.These collaborations will build Aster into a hub where users can participate in multiple DeFi strategies and conduct derivative trading at the same time.
The mortgage system of income guarantee solves the opportunity cost problem and allows users to earn profits by trading margins.Instead of holding an idle USDT, users can mint USDF (Aster’s income stablecoin), which can earn delta neutral returns while serving as collateral.Similarly, asBNB can also earn pledge rewards (annualized yield is about 5-7%) and serve as margin for leveraged positions.This allows a deposit to create multiple sources of income—staking income, transaction profits and token rewards—to motivate users to hold more funds on the platform, thus naturally expanding the liquidity pool.
YZi Labs’ investment schedule provides a key background for Binance’s strategic thinking.The investment company completed its investment in Aster’s predecessor Astherus in November 2024, when Hyperliquid was posing a serious competitive threat to Binance’s derivatives dominance.According to a representative of BNB Chain, Aster received guidance, ecosystem exposure, and technical and marketing resources as part of the YZi Labs incubation program, making it the No. 1 perpetual contract DEX on BNB Chain.Hyperliquid’s trading volume has been growing steadily between 2024 and 2025.Although Binance’s absolute trading volume is much higher than Hyperliquid, the growth trajectory of Hyperliquid’s growth from near zero to a certain scale suggests that the platform has successfully established its own market rather than directly snatching Binance’s traders.
YZi Labs’ portfolio strategy becomes clearer when looking at it with other investments like MYX Finance.MYX Finance is another perpetual contract DEX on BNB Chain that has experienced an explosive growth.These investments suggest that YZi Labs is coordinating efforts to build BNB Chain’s DeFi infrastructure and create alternatives to other on-chain successful protocols.
Binance’s overall strategy seems to focus on ecosystem maintenance rather than direct competition.Binance has not attempted to replicate Hyperliquid’s customized Layer 1 solution, but instead takes advantage of its existing ecosystem advantages:Regulatory relations, fiat currency channels, institutional partnerships and deep liquidity pools.Aster benefits from these network effects while providing a decentralized transaction experience to a growing complex user base.
Instead of viewing decentralized protocols as a threat to be ignored or marginalized, Binance actively invests in and promotes DeFi alternatives that are still within the reach of its ecosystem.
So what is the result?
The emergence of Aster either marks a critical moment in decentralized derivatives trading or the most expensive “I can do it” strategy Zhao Changpeng has adopted to keep up with his competitors.As for what exactly is, there is no conclusion yet.
Theoretically, the platform satisfies all the right elements—Multi-chain liquidity, earnings-generating collateral, stock perpetual contracts and adequate guarantees.Earning earnings while trading derivatives sounds great, but you have to remember that most cryptocurrency innovations that sound incredibly good are usually fake.
The surge in total lock-up value (TVL) of $2 billion has then plummeted to $655 million, which may be a reminder that initial hype and sustainable adoption are completely different things.When your TVL plummets by 67% in one day, you should probably question whether these numbers represent real users or those “farmers” who are eager to cash out whenever there is any trouble.
The token economy focuses more on long-term community construction rather than short-term value acquisition. Whether short-term value acquisition is far-sighted or naive depends on your perspective.Unlike Hyperliquid’s proven “earnings buyback” mechanism, Aster’s value proposition requires users to believe that obtaining a margin yield of 3% while trading 100 times the leverage position is to some extent a sustainable business model.
The test lies in whether the platform can convince traders to abandon Hyperliquid’s proven infrastructure in favor of multi-chain experiments supported by the same ecosystem, which led to the FTX crash in 2022.It’s really stressful.
When the world’s largest exchange feels necessary to support a DeFi competitor, it shows that the centralized model is not as unbreakable as people once thought.Whether this will make Aster a winner or just an expensive hedge remains to be seen.
