5 things newbies should know before trying Aster DEX

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Aster: Five key points to read for newcomers to decentralized exchanges with perpetual contracts

Aster is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that focuses on perpetual contracts. Before trying it out, beginners need to understand five key questions: what is a perpetual contract, the risk of 1001 leverage, transaction fees, the running chain of Aster, and how to interpret its token and transaction volume data.

What is Aster DEX?

Aster originated from Astherus. The project was merged with APX Finance in 2024 and will be relaunched under the name "Aster" in March 2025. Its native token ASTER will be launched in September 2025. YZi Labs is one of the supporters of the project.

1. It is mainly a perpetual contract exchange

A Perpetual future (Perp) is a contract that tracks asset prices but never expires. Traders are required to pay or collect a Funding Rate, which is a regular payment designed to bring the contract price closer to the spot price.

Tradable instruments:

Cryptocurrency perpetual contract: BTC/USDT is the most active trading pair.
Perpetual contracts for stocks and commodities: Contracts that track U.S. stocks and metals prices.

Aster also provides a hidden order function, which hides the size and direction of an order before it is completed.

2. How dangerous is 1001 times leverage?

Aster offers three perpetual contract models:

Pro (Professional Mode):Standard order book model.
Shield: Keep orders and positions private.
1001x (power mode): One-click operation mode.

In 1001x mode, a reverse price fluctuation of approximately 0.1% may exhaust all your margin. Liquidation is when an exchange closes your position to cover losses, which may occur even in smaller fluctuations.

Understand your margin model:

Cross Margin: Default mode, all positions share a margin pool.
Isolated Margin: Limits losses to a single position.

3. How much does it cost to trade on Aster?

It is reported that Aster will reduce the Maker (pending order) fee for perpetual contracts to 0% on February 2, 2026. Maker orders provide liquidity to the order book, while Taker orders are sold immediately.

Rate structure:

USDT Perpetual Contract: Maker 0%, Taker 0.04%
Stock perpetual contract: Maker 0%, Taker 0.009%
USD1 Perpetual contract: Maker 0%, Taker 0.005%
1001x mode: 0.08% will be charged for opening and closing positions, plus a fixed execution fee. Under leverage of 500 times or more, there is no opening fee, and the closing fee depends on the realized profits.

Using ASTER tokens to pay fees reduces perpetual contract commissions by 5%.

4. On which networks does Aster run?

Aster supports BNB Chain, Ethereum, Arbitrum and Solana. It also runs its own blockchain, Aster Chain, which will be launched on the main network in stages starting on March 17, 2026.

Basic features of Aster Chain:

Speed: Block generation time is 50 milliseconds. According to the document, there is no Gas fee for transactions.
Privacy: The optional model uses Zero-Knowledge Proofs to hide balances and positions, proving the validity of transactions without revealing transaction details.

Aster's integration partners include Chainlink, Circle's CCTP and Fireblocks.

5. Check the data behind ASTER

In October 2025, DefiLlama removed its perpetual contract trading volume from statistics because the approximately US$100 billion reported by Aster could not be verified by DefiLlama.

Currently, DefiLlama displays the following data:

30-day perpetual contract trading volume: US$56.09 billion
Open Interest: US$1.345 billion
Total lock-in value (TVL): US$773.87 million

These data are marked as "off-chain data" and therefore cannot be directly verified on-chain.

ASTER Token Economics:

供应量：最大供应量 80 亿枚，总供应量约 77.9 亿枚，流通量 27.14 亿枚。
回购机制：自 2026 年 6 月 17 日起，每日平台费用的 99% 用于在市场上购买 ASTER。这些代币分配给锁定 ASTER 以获取奖励的 veASTER 持有者，同时等量代币将从储备金中销毁，直至总供应量降至 30 亿枚。
近期销毁：10 月 5 日报告称销毁了 310.9 万枚 ASTER，价值约 225 万美元。

ASTER 当前交易情况：

据 CoinGecko 数据，10 月 12 日 ASTER 价格为 0.7113 美元，市值为 19.3 亿美元，较 2025 年 9 月 2.41 美元的高点下跌了 70.5%。CoinMarketCap 的 AI 分析（10 月 11 日）指出，支撑位为 0.70 美元，阻力位在 0.718 美元附近。