What Is Aster? The Decentralized Exchange on BNB Chain That’s Taking on Hyperliquid

Decentralized exchange Aster has caught traders’ attention thanks to its eye-watering 1,001x leverage options, support from Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, and a soaring token. 

Due to its focus on perpetual futures trading, Aster is considered a rival to Hyperliquid—which has been one of the most successful crypto projects of the year. During its first week, it flipped Hyperliquid in daily revenue but remained behind in terms of trading volume. 

Thanks to its explosive start, according to CoinGecko, its Aster token surged to a $3.2 billion market cap as the 50th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization—not bad for a week’s work.

So, what exactly is Aster? What even is a perpetual future? How does Aster match up against Hyperliquid? And what’s next? Here’s a look at the popular BNB Chain exchange.

What is Aster?

Aster is a decentralized exchange that supports multiple chains, including Solana, Ethereum, and Arbitrum, but is most closely tied to BNB Chain. It specializes in perpetual futures trading, although it also offers spot trading. The project is backed by YZi Labs, the crypto investment firm of Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who co-founded Binance.

Perpetual futures allow traders to speculate on the price of cryptocurrencies without owning the underlying asset—be it Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other available token. Traditional futures require an expiration date, while perpetual futures do not. That said, traders still have to select if they want to short (meaning the price will drop) or long (the price will rise) the selected asset.

On top of this, perpetual futures have become closely tied to highly leveraged trades—with Aster’s max leverage set at a whopping 1,001x.

Aster exploded in popularity in September 2025, with the debut of its token that soared 2,000% in its first seven days to $3.8 billion market capitalization. At the time of writing, it has settled at a more than $3 billion market cap, which makes it the 50th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Aster vs. Hyperliquid

With its success, Aster has naturally been compared to Hyperliquid—which has established itself as the leading decentralized exchange specializing in perpetual futures.

At the time of writing, in late September 2025, Aster’s weekly trading volume sits at $3.32 billion, behind Hyperliquid at $5.39 billion. That said, according to DefiLlama, it has surpassed the rival exchange in daily revenue on multiple days since its launch.

So what’s the difference? First, Aster operates natively on four networks, lowering friction for traders to get started, while Hyperliquid has its own blockchain powering the exchange. That said, Aster does have aims to eventually launch its own layer-1 network.

Another major difference is that Aster appears to have a stronger focus on privacy, with the launch of Hidden Orders allowing for private trades to be placed. By contrast, Hyperliquid’s highly transparent model has been, in part, its strength as it caught headlines due to whales placing eye-popping bets.

However, CZ told Farokh Sarmad of Rug Radio—Decrypt’s sister company—in a video interview in May that Hyperliquid’s transparent model may not be optimal for big trades.

“The current model where everything is fully transparent may or may not be the best model,”  the Binance co-founder said. “Yeah, you can see a big whale place a $300 million short. But the guy who really wants to do a $300 million short doesn’t want you to see it.”

On top of this, Aster’s maximum leverage is a dizzying 1,001x while Hyperliquid tops out at 40x. To put that into perspective, the highest that the centralized exchange Binance offers is 20x, and you have to pass certain requirements to do so.

The future of Aster

Aster has gotten off to a hot start, but it has big plans to keep building.

A move to a dedicated layer-1 network will be the most significant change to the decentralized exchange, and will be a notable move away from BNB Chain—which is tied to Binance, which CZ co-founded.

Exact details on this move are still fairly under wraps, with Aster’s official docs simply saying “coming soon.” Aster Chain is currently in an internal testing phase, the exchange’s CEO Leonard told Cointelegraph. Leonard said it is being designed to “preserve trade privacy.”

What users are likely most excited for, though, is the possibility of an Aster airdrop. 

After its token generation event, a portion of the token supply was airdropped to those that had participated in previous airdrop campaigns. On October 17, the airdrop claim period will close and any unclaimed tokens will go back to the community rewards pool—which accounts for 53.5% of its total supply.

As such, users are anticipating another round of airdrops to take place sometime after the October claim period closes. And some traders are already attempting to farm it.

Whether you’re farming the airdrop, eagerly anticipating the new layer-1 network, or just trading with insane leverage, Aster has a lot in store for users. Whether it ultimately has the same kind of long-term impact as Hyperliquid remains to be seen, however.