Aster has conquered the top tier of decentralized trading, and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao — better known online as CZ — put the reason in simple terms: lower fees bring higher volumes. The effect is already clear in the numbers by DefiLlama.
In the past 24 hours, Aster cleared $84.29 billion in perpetual trading, compared with $5.59 billion on Hyperliquid. Over seven days, Aster hit $270.68 billion, ahead of Hyperliquid’s $80.52 billion.
Even on the 30-day view, Aster leads with $290.28 billion against $279.28 billion. Lighter, a smaller rival with no token yet, sits in between with $158.30 billion.
The way Aster has pulled this off may be called a vampire attack. By charging less, it has snatched the "crown" away from competitors and leveraged momentum with full force. With CZ backing it as an advisor, the project has had extra credibility, and the market reaction has been explosive.
Aster token causes massive FOMO
The ASTER token jumped 8,000% in a week, pushing its market cap above $3 billion and setting off heavy FOMO across trading circles.
Aster is not slowing down. The second season of farming points is live until Oct. 5, adding more incentives on top of its already high turnover.
With $2.3 billion locked and $1.2 billion in annualized fees, it is extracting more value relative to its size than Hyperliquid, which remains bigger overall with $5.8 billion locked.
For now, Aster has become the story of the season in decentralized derivatives.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team