Recently, Aster marked its first anniversary as a new starting point, initiating key steps to build institutional-grade privacy DeFi infrastructure. On March 17, the Aster Chain mainnet officially launched, dedicated to providing traders with fair sequencing and optional privacy trading experiences. Shortly after, on March 20, Aster Chain's native staking feature went live, deeply binding network security with ecosystem growth through a dual reward mechanism.
From repeatedly breaking trading volume records in the second half of 2025, to successfully completing the brand upgrade and TGE, to the current L1 mainnet launch, Aster is rapidly evolving from an innovative Perp DEX into a more complete infrastructure layer.
However, in the current context of L1 oversaturation, cold market sentiment, major macro changes, and severely fragmented attention, is launching an L1 the best timing? What are the differentiated advantages of Aster Chain? And what are the upcoming roadmap plans?
To answer these questions, Odaily Planet Daily specially interviewed Aster CEO Leonard, delving into its key decisions over the past year, insights into industry challenges, and the long-term vision of building "trusted Infrastructure".
I found that the core logic lies in: "First have users and revenue, then launch the mainnet," rather than a "cold start." This ensures that every step Aster takes is grounded in real demand and market validation. Simultaneously, Aster Chain's unique "optional privacy" value proposition will be the source of its moat.
There is much in Aster's story worth pondering for Web3 entrepreneurs. Below, the story will be told in the first person by Aster CEO Leonard, enjoy~
What Did Aster Do Right in the Past Year?
Starting in the second half of 2025, the platform's 24h trading volume kept breaking records, from $1 billion in June to reaching $11 billion in September, feeling the project's rapid development. Also in September, during Aster's TGE, achievements like a 24h trading volume breakthrough of $345 million, 330,000 new wallet addresses, and platform TVL exceeding $1 billion solidified Aster's position in the DEX market. When trading volumes broke records, it made us realize that we entered the right track at the right time.
Alongside the TGE, the brand also successfully transitioned from APX to Aster.
And when we launched the L1 mainnet with truly "optional privacy" functionality, it was a unique product unavailable on the market and a prerequisite for on-chain trading moving towards mass adoption.
How Did We Get Through the Darkest Times?
When we initially underwent the rebranding, the market was almost monopolized by Hyperliquid, and no one thought anyone could challenge their position. For a long time before our TGE, the general public thought this was impossible. Before the Aster TGE, the estimated FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) wasn't high, but we ultimately received a valuation far exceeding expectations, which also triggered a re-evaluation of Perp DEX (Perpetual Contract Decentralized Exchange) projects by the market.
In fact, we once postponed the TGE plan because we felt there was room for product improvement before the official launch. However, we later decided to choose "execution speed" over "pursuing perfection". Looking back, this was the right decision.
The lesson learned is: In an emerging market like Perp DEX, there is no so-called "standard playbook" for handling the toughest problems. Most consensus advice only applies to normal conditions. There's no magic here, only believing in what you do and working hard.
And the core belief that can lead the team to "embrace hardship" is: DEX will ultimately devour the entire trading world, and "optional privacy" is the key to achieving this process.
Behind the High-Speed Growth, Which Team Growth Experiences Can Be Reused?
As the project scaled, we proactively moved away from the early decision-making model reliant on intuition, instead deeply relying on data. Aster's current organizational structure is more refined, decision-making is more systematic, and team metrics are clearer to achieve quantifiable, trackable growth.
Although the organization is growing, some underlying logic remains constant: the owner consciousness of all members, taking full responsibility for the final outcome; rejecting hesitation, action first; result-oriented, processes must ultimately translate into substantive value for users and the protocol.
To maintain the early team's execution and judgment, we adopted three major strategies: Extreme flatness, rejecting internal friction, minimizing management layers as much as possible, reducing ineffective communication links, ensuring transparent and symmetric information; Decision delegation, full authorization: Give teams clear KPIs and Ownership, delegate decision-making power to those closest to the action; Land first, perfect later, emphasizing "quick delivery, small steps fast running", letting the market provide first-hand correction feedback, completing iteration and optimization in a real environment.
The Hardest Time for a New L1? How Does Aster Chain Define Itself?
First, let's talk about the differentiated technical design. Aster Chain adopts a ZK + Stealth Address architecture: Stealth Address makes every transaction automatically private, ZKproof makes every private transaction verifiable. (Friends interested in the technical details of how Aster Chain balances on-chain fund transparency and transaction privacy, please refer to the Gitbook.)
For developers, we launched Aster Code, which is an ecosystem for fee sharing. The core benefit is allowing developers to build their own trading interfaces and directly automate revenue generation from them.
Furthermore, Aster Code also improves developers' integration efficiency, provides a transparent and controlled authorization mechanism, and supports data monitoring and instant settlement.
The Real Challenge of L1: After the Mainnet Launch, How to Make Developers and Users Stay?
The L1 battle is a competition for liquidity.
Technical solutions are basic requirements; users should not feel the difference between centralized and decentralized architectures when trading. Users of Aster Perp DEX are inherently users of Aster Chain. We had users, even revenue, before launching the mainnet. This is the model for successful projects in this cycle, not building a chain first and then looking for a business model.
Regarding ecosystem growth, I believe the privacy option will drive substantive adoption of decentralized trading by institutions, which has always been a past obstacle. Now that we provide privacy features, institutions will at least start trying to move part of their trading flow on-chain. The reasoning is sound: they want diversification, and many institutions already believe the future of trading lies in DEXs. They just needed a viable solution. And now, that solution has emerged: Aster Chain.
What Will the Future Industry Landscape Be? And What is Aster's Moat?
Privacy and core trading experience are our core. In the liquidity competition track, network effects mean capital will inevitably concentrate towards the top players. I believe it's highly likely that an "oligopoly"格局 dominated by the top three players will form in the future; for DEXs, this concentration could be even higher.
Because for DEXs, geographical region or market segment limitations barely exist. Competitive differentiation mainly comes from different design principles and philosophies. Just like Aster always focuses on privacy and is willing to make necessary trade-offs for this core value, this反而 constitutes our moat, allowing us to survive in the long-term competition.
When Contacting B-end, What Point Most Impresses Potential Partners?
Aster Chain is actively promoting cooperation in both Web2 and Web3 fields.
Web3 companies have huge potential for product collaboration with us. For example, we are talking with other stablecoin projects, exploring cooperation models similar to the World Liberty Financial architecture. Additionally, we are also focusing on prediction markets because there is high overlap between prediction market users and perp DEX traders, and the cross-selling opportunities are obvious.
On the Web2 side, most conversations focus on financial companies. The most common point of interest is: building markets on Aster or getting assets listed. This type of cooperation is the easiest阶段性 goal for them to achieve. Although the cycle for establishing cooperation with large companies, especially regulated financial institutions, is long, once confirmed, we will announce it publicly.
What Should We Do Now? Backcasting Based on Judgments About the Future
After the mainnet launch, Aster's Q2 priorities include:
- Attracting users, professional traders, and institutional traders with privacy needs;
- Increasing asset types and liquidity;
- Expanding the ecosystem through Aster Code and Aster Chain;
- Strengthening token utility and governance;
- Optimizing the trading interface (UI/UX)......
Crypto Market Downturn, External AI Hype, Any Rhythm Adjustments or Countermeasures from Aster?
Aster cannot predict the market, can only focus on building, surviving the winter and continuously creating value is the only certain path to the next ATH.
As for the AI trend, Aster has already provided relevant skill interfaces for AI Agents. Although not AI experts, we can empower AI developers and Agents, allowing them to build tools on Aster and provide us feedback on how to optimize the product, making Aster not only human-friendly but also attractive to AI Agents.
Years later, I hope the industry's evaluation of Aster is: infrastructure that users can trust long-term and can carry funds and strategies.
