Aster

Aster took shape in November 2024 when Astherus, a multi-asset liquidity and yield protocol on BNB Chain, closed a seed round with YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs) and, days later, acquired APX Finance, a decentralized perpetuals exchange. The combined products were rebranded as Aster in early 2025, pairing APX's trading engine with Astherus's yield products (asBNB, USDF) so that collateral earns yield while it backs positions. The platform is built around trading privacy: Hidden Orders keep order size and liquidation levels off the public book, and the team's thesis is that visible positions on transparent venues get hunted. Aster is registered in the British Virgin Islands and its leadership is largely pseudonymous. The ASTER token launched on September 17, 2025 with an 8 billion supply, 53.5% of it earmarked for airdrops; APX holders swapped into ASTER, and the token was listed on Binance the same month. Public endorsement from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who later disclosed buying ASTER, drove a sharp run-up and a jump in volume that put Aster second among perp DEXs behind Hyperliquid. Since then the project has shipped a dedicated Layer 1 and progressively tightened its tokenomics, most recently committing 99% of daily fees to buybacks for veASTER stakers with a matching burn from the team allocation, targeting a 3 billion supply. Documentation is at docs.asterdex.com and public metrics at the team's Dune dashboard.