As a star project that once held nearly 50% market share of decentralized perpetual contract exchanges, $ASTER (Aster DEX native token) has recently been mired in multiple negative whirlpools such as data falsification, token concentration, and operational mismanagement, leading to a continuous collapse of user trust and casting a heavy shadow over the project's prospects. From the removal of trading volume by authoritative platforms to ongoing disputes over token allocation, a series of issues have exposed the project's fatal flaws in transparency, technical stability, and governance mechanisms.
Allegations of data falsification have been confirmed, and the removal of trading volume has triggered a trust earthquake.
In early October 2025, the authoritative data platform in the DeFi field, DeFiLlama, suddenly removed the trading volume data for the perpetual contracts of ASTER, pointing directly to its core issue—ASTER's trading volume on major trading pairs such as XRP/USDT and ETH/USDT showed an 'almost 1:1 precise correlation' with Binance, sharply contrasting with the data independence of similar platforms like Hyperliquid. This abnormal phenomenon was interpreted by the market as a strong signal of 'wash trading' or 'trading volume mirroring', directly triggering drastic fluctuations in the price of $ASTER, which plummeted from $2.08 to $1.84 within 24 hours, a decline of nearly 8%, and the total locked value (TVL) suddenly dropped by more than $362 million.
What further raises investors' doubts is that DeFiLlama co-founder 0xngmi publicly stated that ASTER cannot provide underlying order book data to prove its innocence, 'This move aims to protect users who rely on data for investment decisions.' Blockchain investigator ZachXBT directly criticized relevant parties for normalizing false transactions, while the justification from ASTER supporters that 'Binance liquidity migration caused data synchronization' failed to quell market concerns due to a lack of empirical support. This incident not only highlights the data integrity crisis of $ASTER but also exposes the vulnerability of the DeFi sector's reliance on third-party data.
Token concentration poses hidden dangers, and the risk of market manipulation is alarming.
Aside from data fraud, ASTER's token distribution mechanism can be described as a 'centralization trap.' Public data shows that out of a total supply of 1 billion ASTER tokens, the top 10 wallets control 96% of the total token supply (about 769 million tokens), with the top 3 wallets accounting for 77.9%, and a single whale holding 44.7% of the circulating chips. This extremely concentrated token structure means that prices can easily be manipulated by a few entities, and the risk of a large-scale sell-off triggering a collapse hangs over the market like the sword of Damocles, warned by several analysts as 'a typical insider game.'
Ordinary investors face not only the risk of price manipulation but also the dilemma of limited liquidity. Some users have reported that $ASTER has a withdrawal limit of $63,000 per day, making it 'difficult to escape in an emergency,' further exacerbating market panic. The so-called 'ecological incentives' from the project side, under a highly controlled structure, seem more like a gimmick to attract retail investors rather than changing the disadvantaged position of ordinary investors.
Frequent chaos in airdrops and unlocking has led to serious doubts about operational capabilities.
The operational mismanagement of ASTER is vividly reflected in the airdrop and token unlocking phases. The Stage 2 airdrop, originally scheduled for October 14, 2025, was delayed to October 20 due to 'allocation data errors,' affecting 153,000 users. What further triggered community backlash was the severe imbalance in airdrop allocation—community member Quinten (048.eth) claimed to bring in over $100 million in trading volume and over 250 new users but only received 338 ASTER rewards, this obvious unfairness forced the team to re-examine the allocation data.
In terms of token unlocking, the project's erratic behavior further erodes trust. In October 2025, rumors of 'unlocking 320 million tokens' led to panic selling, prompting the team to urgently clarify that it was for 'airdrop collection window opening' rather than actual unlocking; in November, they suddenly announced significant delays to several unlocking plans originally scheduled for 2025, with some pushed to the summer of 2026, and even strategic reserve unlocking postponed to 2035. This 'temporary band-aid' adjustment has been criticized as 'covering up internal data inconsistencies,' and a previous blunder where the airdrop collection window 'unexpectedly opened 24 hours early' due to a timezone setting error further exposed the team's operational capability shortcomings.
Technical defects and related controversies overlap, with multiple risks concentrating and exploding.
Technical vulnerabilities have raised serious doubts about the trading security of $ASTER. At the end of September 2025, its XPL perpetual contract experienced price anomalies, forcing a large number of leveraged positions to be liquidated, leading the platform to ultimately compensate users for losses, confirming the 'insufficient system stability' problem acknowledged by CEO 'Leonard' (anonymous identity). More seriously, the ALP automated market maker pool model adopted by $ASTER has design flaws—when traders are overall profitable, liquidity providers face massive losses, and during severe market fluctuations, it may trigger chain liquidations, posing a direct threat to the platform's survival.
Meanwhile, the ambiguous relationship between $ASTER and Binance has raised questions about conflicts of interest. The project advisor is Binance founder CZ, and many core members are former Binance employees. This background makes the accusation of 'perfectly correlated trading volume' more convincing, and the market generally worries about the existence of hidden benefits. Although CZ publicly denies official involvement, the lack of transparency from the project's core team—CEO 'Leonard' presenting himself with a hooded avatar, without disclosing any real identity information—further amplifies uncertainty. Additionally, GitHub records show only two code submissions in the last three months, contrasting sharply with the project's claims of 'zero-knowledge proof privacy transactions' and other technological innovations, raising strong concerns about development progress.
From data fraud to token control, from mismanagement to technical defects, a series of negative events surrounding ASTER are not isolated but expose fundamental flaws in the project's core logic. Against the backdrop of increasing demands for data integrity and transparency in the DeFi industry, if ASTER cannot resolve its trust crisis, optimize its token structure, and enhance technical reliability, its former market share advantage may rapidly diminish. For investors, the current triple dilemma of trust collapse, liquidity risk, and product challenges facing $ASTER means they need to be wary of further price pressure risks and cautiously assess the project's sustainability.
