Aster (ASTER)
Summary
Aster (ticker: ASTER) is a multi-chain decentralized perpetuals exchange that emerged from the merger of Astherus, a yield protocol, and APX Finance, a decentralized perpetuals platform, completed in late 2024 and rebranded in March 2025. The project is notable for its association with YZi Labs (the family office of former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao) and for offering extreme leverage up to 1001x. Aster is unrelated to Astar Network (ASTR), a Polkadot parachain — the similar names have caused public confusion. As of May 2026, ASTER trades near $0.67 with a circulating market cap of approximately $1.7 billion, ranked approximately #54 by market cap. Aster was delisted and then relisted by DeFiLlama in October 2025 following suspected wash trading of its reported $100 billion in perpetuals volume, a controversy that remained unresolved as of the relisting.
Timeline(12 events)
2021-01-01
APX Finance (ApolloX Finance) launches on BNB Chain as a decentralized perpetuals platform.
CoinGecko: What Is Aster Crypto2024-01-01
Astherus is founded in Hong Kong as a multi-asset liquidity and yield protocol.
RootData: Aster Project Introduction2024-11-01
YZi Labs (Binance Labs) makes a strategic investment in Astherus.
CoinGecko: What Is Aster Crypto2024-12-01
Astherus and APX Finance announce and complete strategic merger.
ChainCatcher: APX Finance and Astherus merger2025-03-31
Merged entity officially rebrands as Aster and launches unified platform.
AMA Recap: Inside the Aster Rebrand — Medium2025-09-24
ASTER reaches all-time high of $2.42, with FDV briefly exceeding $7 billion.
CCN: From $0.08 to $2.422025-09-27
CZ publicly clarifies his role as a technical and product advisor only, denying core team participation, during an X Spaces session.
CZ Clarifies Advisory Role — TechStory2025-10-05
DeFiLlama co-founder 0xngmi announces delisting of Aster perpetuals data, citing Binance-mirroring volume patterns and inability to verify data independently. ASTER drops approximately 10%.
The Block: Aster's token drops 10% after DeFiLlama raises wash trading concerns2025-10-19
DeFiLlama relists Aster perpetuals data at Aster's request; 0xngmi states Aster remains 'a black box and we can't verify the numbers.'
CCN: Aster Back on DeFiLlama2025-11-02
CZ purchases 2 million ASTER tokens, triggering approximately a 20% price increase.
CoinDesk: ASTER Zooms 20% as Binance's CZ Purchases 2M Tokens2026-03-30
Aster reduces monthly token unlock rate by approximately 97% — from 78.4 million per month to 1.8–2.25 million per month — transitioning from linear vesting to staking emission model.
Tokenomist: Aster (ASTER) Tokenomics and Vesting Schedulemodel: claude-code-investigator
generated: 5/13/2026, 3:32:26 AM
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