Radical Strategies and Huge "Debts": How Aster DEX Reshapes the Rules of the Game in the Perptual Futures Battlefield?

In 2025, on the battlefield of fierce competition among perpetual futures exchanges (Perp DEX), Aster has risen with an unprecedented aggressive posture, quickly becoming the market focus through record-breaking volume and substantial incentive programs. However, this rapid rise, built on the future token inflation "debt," has sparked profound questions in the market about its sustainability.

From ApolloX to Aster: The Birth of a Strategic Agent

The development trajectory of Aster can be traced back to ApolloX, established in 2021, which initially adopted a hybrid architecture of "off-chain matching + on-chain settlement" aimed at combining the smooth experience of centralized exchanges with the self-custody advantages of decentralized finance. As the DeFi infrastructure matured, ApolloX shifted to a fully on-chain operating model and introduced the ALP (ApolloX Liquidity Provider) liquidity pool as a counterparty.

At the end of 2024, the strategic merger of APX Finance and the yield protocol Astherus became a key turning point in the evolution of Aster. This merger brought about core innovations:

USDF: A yield-bearing stablecoin supported by delta-neutral strategies that generates passive income for holders.

This "trading is mining, holding positions enjoy profits" model greatly enhances capital efficiency, builds strong competitive barriers, and Aster's multi-chain expansion strategy positions it as a cross-chain liquidity aggregator.

Technical Architecture: Dual-Mode Design Market Segmentation Strategy

The architecture design of Aster reflects a profound understanding of market segmentation, capturing the entire user spectrum from professional traders to high-risk tolerant retail investors by offering two distinctly different trading modes:

· Professional Mode (Order Book Perpetual Futures)

· Using a Centralized Limit Order Book (CLOB) mechanism

· Supports advanced order types

· Provided deep liquidity by professional market makers

· Charge competitive fees

· Simple Mode (1001x)

· AMM-style ALP liquidity pool

· Provide a simplified one-click trading experience for retail and 'Degen' traders.

· Leverage ratio up to 1001 times

· Zero slippage and zero opening fees, but with a profit cap.

This dual-mode architecture allows Aster to serve two distinctly different user groups simultaneously, maximizing its total potential market.

"Volume Manipulation" Strategy: Manufactured Prosperity or a Necessary Measure?

The trading volume data of Aster is astonishing: during peak periods, the 24-hour trading volume reached an incredible $36 billion to $70 billion, while its open interest (OI) was only $1.25 billion, resulting in a ratio of trading volume to total value locked (TVL) of about 19, which clearly indicates the presence of "extremely aggressive wash trading."

This artificially created trading volume can be understood as a strategy to guide liquidity:

· Generate huge trading volume through airdrop incentives

· High volume attracts professional market makers

· Market makers provide real liquidity and tighten spreads

· Good liquidity and user experience ultimately attract organic traders.

Aster uses approximately 320 million $ASTER (4% of the supply) as the second phase incentive, amounting to a forward token incentive of about 600 million USD, maintaining an ecosystem with a market value of 3 billion (15 billion fully diluted valuation).

Future "Debt" and Systemic Risk

The biggest challenge faced by Aster comes from its massive airdrop allocation (accounting for 53.5% of the total supply), which has resulted in a large amount of Tokens being suspended, leading to ongoing selling pressure in the future. To alleviate this "debt," the protocol has designed an 80-month linear release schedule, with only 8.8% (704 million ASTER) unlocked at the TGE.

In addition to the challenges of token economics, Aster also faces multiple systemic risks:

Inherent Vulnerability of the ALP Model: If traders as a whole continue to be profitable, LP will face significant losses.

Chain liquidation risk: Market volatility may trigger chain liquidation, and the system relies on Automatic Deductions (ADL) as a last line of defense.

Small-cap asset manipulation risk: transparency of positions combined with insufficient liquidity could lead to a replay of events similar to Jelly.

Token concentration issue: On-chain data shows that about 6 wallets control up to 96% of the $ASTER total supply.

The Role and Prospects of Strategic Agents

The rise of Aster is not just a product story, but a carefully planned market competition strategy. Its connections with a large exchange are deep-rooted, from funding sources to API design, and public endorsements, all pointing to a clear strategic intention: to serve as an extension of the exchange in the DeFi space, engaging in fierce competition in the perpetual futures market with other competitors.

The API structure design of Aster is very similar to that of mainstream centralized exchanges. This standardized API structure aims to reduce the access friction for professional market makers and guide liquidity from the existing trader network.

Conclusion: The Challenger at the Crossroads

The story of Aster is a complex microcosm of the current DeFi development: it is both an innovative protocol in terms of capital efficiency and product design, and a strategic piece driven by behind-the-scenes forces that aims to reshape the market landscape.

After the prosperity brought by volume manipulation fades, Aster must prove to the market that it can retain users with genuine product value while effectively managing its inherent systemic risks and trust deficits. The ability to successfully transition from an incentive-driven ecosystem to a platform driven by real revenue and organic demand will be the key to determining its ultimate success or failure.

As a derivative part of the exchange ecosystem, Aster has multiple potential development paths, such as binding market makers through mechanisms or becoming a outpost for the exchange's Perptual Futures. There are no perfect solutions in development, only the courage and resilience to learn to coexist with problems.