Aster

In November 2024 Aster forerunner Astherus took seed funding from YZi Labs (ex-Binance Labs); days later it acquired perps platform APX Finance, setting up the merger.

In December 2024 Astherus completed the APX Finance acquisition; in early 2025 the products unified under the Aster brand, pairing APX's engine with Astherus yield collateral.

On September 17, 2025, the ASTER token launched with 8B supply and 53.5% for airdrops; APX holders swapped in, and it listed on Binance that month with CZ's public backing.

In November 2025 CZ disclosed buying 2M ASTER, spiking price and volume and lifting Aster to second among perp DEXs behind Hyperliquid.

In January 2026 Aster launched a Strategic Buyback Reserve directing 20%–40% of daily fees to repurchases; February saw its L1 testnet draw over 50,000 participants.

On March 17, 2026, the privacy-focused Aster Chain mainnet went live with hidden orders and positions by default and a native BNB Chain bridge, reframing it as a private venue.

In June 2026 Aster raised buybacks to 99% of daily fees plus a matching team-allocation burn, strengthening value capture for veASTER stakers and a deflationary thesis.

By September 2026 cumulative ASTER burns passed 200M tokens; the privacy L1 and aggressive buybacks steer it from an airdrop-era volume leader toward a sustainable protocol.

On June 17, 2026, Aster upgraded its tokenomics: 99% of daily platform fees are used to automatically buy back ASTER via TWAP and are distributed to veASTER stakers, while an equal amount is burned from reserves (team allocation first) every two weeks, targeting a reduction of total supply from 8 billion to 3 billion tokens; the 50,000 USDT permissionless listing fee also funds buybacks.

From October 5 to 19, the protocol used 99% of fees to repurchase 2.7217 million ASTER and burned an equal amount of team tokens; cumulative burns under the new model reached 32.3079 million, and total historical burns exceeded 210 million. As of October 19, estimated annualized staking yields were 4.53% for a 26-week lock and 24.8% for a 208-week lock. Since the Aster Chain mainnet went live in March, the protocol has ranked among the top two perp DEXs by volume, with cumulative protocol fees exceeding $460 million.

Aster completed the mainnet launch of its own L1, Aster Chain, in Q1 2026, alongside developer tooling Aster Code and fiat on/off-ramps. On the trading side it shipped Shield Mode (private high-leverage) and TWAP strategy orders, and expanded RWA markets such as stock perpetuals. On the deflationary front, after the 155.7 million-token S3 buyback the team burned 77.86 million ASTER (~$89.8M), with cumulative buybacks reaching 165.8 million.

Future strategy and roadmap: Aster's differentiation is not throughput but giving nearly all fees back to the token: since June, 99% of daily platform fees fund open-market buybacks, matched by an equal burn from the team allocation, with supply capped toward 3 billion and veASTER holders as the main distribution channel, which ties valuation to volume rather than narrative. On product, Aster Chain's private orders and stock and commodity perpetuals target markets Hyperliquid does not cover, while yield-bearing collateral retains market makers; the cost is roughly $0.9 billion in daily perpetual volume, about a fifth of Hyperliquid's, and DefiLlama no longer treats its historical volume as verified because it is reported offchain. Whether buybacks become sustainable unit economics depends on real fee rates and market-maker depth rising together after Aster Chain's launch.

Leonard is co-founder and CEO of Aster and has long worked under a pseudonym. He began in low-latency systems at high-frequency trading infrastructure firms, then led derivatives projects at Binance, contributing to perpetual contract and matching rule design, before leaving in 2021 to build the decentralised perpetual platform ApolloX, which merged with the Astherus team to become Aster in 2025.

Ember is head of business, covering ecosystem expansion, market maker relationships and liquidity incentives, after handling institutional clients at several exchanges and market makers. Engineering is split into matching, risk and frontend groups reporting to the founder, and business and market maker relationships sit with Ember. The team discloses little and most members use pseudonyms.

Aster spot trading carries base fees of 0.005% for makers and 0.04% for takers, with VIP tiers assessed on rolling 14-day volume and a further 5% discount when spot fees are paid in $ASTER.

Aster perpetual contracts charge 0% maker and 0.04% taker fees on standard crypto pairs, 0.1% taker on Group B pairs, and a uniform 1.25 bps taker fee on RWA perpetual pairs.