We usually don’t see many thousands of percent gains from utility tokens; that’s more of a meme coin phenomenon.
However, over the past month, the perpetual futures exchange Aster has seen its native token, $ASTER, make astounding gains of over 2,100%.
Aster burst onto the scene with bold ambitions, establishing itself as a strong competitor to established players like Hyperliquid.
Aster is a decentralized exchange (DEX) designed for perpetual futures trading—derivatives contracts that do not have expiration dates. Unlike standard futures, perpetuals allow traders to speculate on price movements (long or short) indefinitely.
Though Aster also offers spot trading, its main draw is derivatives. The project is backed by YZi Labs and has links to Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao.
Aster is built to be multi-chain, supporting BNB Chain, Solana, Ethereum, and Arbitrum. But technical factors alone don’t explain why Aster has made such progress; that comes down to something simpler.
Within days of launch, Aster made waves by exceeding Hyperliquid in daily revenue on several occasions, although its weekly trading volume still lags behind. The recent 24-hour trading volume of $ASTER to $HYPE was $924M compared to $671M.
Aster’s multichain design allows participants to trade across their preferred chains without forced routing or bridging costs. Hyperliquid runs its own blockchain as its foundation.
Aster has also suggested moving to its own layer-1 chain in the future. This would free it from relying on BNB Chain and enable custom improvements.
One of the main differentiators is order privacy. Aster offers Hidden Orders, allowing users to make private trades. Hyperliquid’s fully transparent model often reveals large ‘whale’ moves, which may discourage some big traders who prefer to stay stealthy.
Although still in the early stages, Aster could lead a new wave of DeFi trading apps. One key to broader adoption? Powerful, simple Web3 wallets.
Best Wallet is non-custodial, so your tokens stay with you; there’s no third-party control.
Investors can create up to 5 individual wallets within Best Wallet. Create one for Bitcoin, one for EVM tokens, and more, using Best Wallet to navigate the growing world of DeFi protocols and integrated dApps.
As always, do your own research. This isn’t financial advice.
