Key Takeaways
Why is Aster accused of wash trading?
DeFiLlama’s founder alleged its trading data is unverifiable, as Aster’s dark pools obscure who makes or fills orders.
Are whales unbothered by the FUD?
Yes. On-chain data showed large buyers accumulating ASTER, while overall selling pressure has steadily eased since September.
Aster [ASTER] DEX (decentralized exchange) has faced accusations of market manipulation and exaggeration of trading volumes.
In an X post, Oxngmi, pseudonymous founder of data aggregator DeFiLlama, flagged the DEX’s volumes as mirroring Binance [BNB] perpetuals volume.
He added that Ripple [XRP], Ethereum [ETH], and other perp volumes on Aster DEX had a close correlation with Binance but suspiciously diverged from Hyperliquid [HYPE] for similar pairs.
“Aster doesn’t make it possible to get lower-level data such as who is making and filling orders, so until we can get that data to verify if there’s washtrading, Aster perp volumes will be delisted.”
Source: X
Since Aster uses dark pools, its perp DEX matches orders offline, making it difficult to verify the data, unlike Hyperliquid.
Market reactions post-DeFiLlama delisting
The delisting quickly triggered a sell-off for the Aster token.
It slumped about 10% on the 5th of October trading session, dropping from $2.1 to $1.7 before stabilizing above $1.8 as of press time.
Source: Aster/USDT, TradingView
The last dump in late September slowed at $1.5-$1.65 price zone and could act as a rebound if it’s defended. In fact, some high-ticket traders jumped on the discounted window and grabbed the dip.
Whales buy the dip amid exchange outflows
According to Lookonchain, a large player scooped 1.69 million Aster tokens (worth over $3.1 million) during the Sunday decline.
Source: Arkham
A closer look at the overall on-chain exchange flow showed mixed results, though. Since the DEX debuted last month, Exchange Netflow surged to 77 million Aster tokens.
This suggested increased profit-taking (green bars) as more tokens were sent to on-chain exchanges to be offloaded.
Source: Arkham (Aster on-chain exchange flow)
However, the inflow has tapered (flat line), which could be read as the selling pressure has subsided. This could allow for a potential rebound at $1.8 or the support zone above $1.5, especially if more whales jump on the altcoin.
That said, the Aster team had not addressed the accusations by the time of going to press.
Volume dominance raises further scrutiny
In September, the DEX hit a trading volume of $420 billion, nearly double Hyperliquid’s $282 billion over the same period. At the same time, this was about half of the overall $1 trillion perp DEX volume.
Source: The Block
Only a week into October, Aster has already hit $441 billion in DEX volume, out of the total $546 billion (over 90% dominance).
In terms of revenue, the DEX now ranks second only to Tether [USDT], raking in over $210 million in fees in the past 30 days.