Market momentum meets scrutiny
On October 5, reports surfaced questioning the legitimacy of Aster’s explosive growth. The YZi Labs‑backed Perp DEX platform gained attention with a 7,000 % surge in its native token, ASTER. Furthermore, Aster outperformed competitors like Hyperliquid and swiftly rose to the top of the TVL and trading volume lists.
However, this rapid success drew skepticism from DefiLlama, a leading DeFi analytics platform. According to its founder 0xngmi, Aster’s perpetual trading volumes started mirroring Binance’s exactly. “Aster doesn’t make it possible to get lower level data such as who is making and filling orders,” he said, explaining the decision to delist Aster’s perpetual data due to potential wash‑trading concerns.
We've been investigating aster volumes and recently their volumes have started mirroring binance perp volumes almost exactly
— 0xngmi is hiring (@0xngmi) October 5, 2025
Chart on the left is XRPUSDT on aster, you can see the volume ratio vs binance is ~1
Chart on the right is XRP perp volume on hyperliquid, where there's… pic.twitter.com/MwVD7rRyEn
Crypto analyst Simon Dedic praised the move, saying, “Shoutout to 0xngmi, founder of DeFiLlama, for making the tough call… Slowly but surely, their house of cards is starting to collapse.” Despite the controversy, Aster’s price remains resilient. As per CoinMarketCap, ASTER trades at $2.01, up 0.55 % in the last 24 hours, with a trading volume exceeding $1.57 billion.
ASTER’s Binance listing shows it’s gaining popularity, but its price swings and volume concerns mean traders should be careful. Early gains look tempting, but making smart choices is key.