In the crypto world, $ASTER was previously very promising, regarded by many as a 'potential aircraft carrier', believed to be capable of dominating the crypto space. But who would have thought that it would now be mired in continuous troubles, deeply entangled in a pile of crises, leaving investors in a dire situation; my heart is also anxious.
Data integrity has completely collapsed
In early October 2025, DeFiLlama did something significant by directly deleting the trading volume data of the ASTER perpetual contracts. Why? It turned out that the trading volume was almost identical to Binance's, which clearly indicated a problem; it was likely that volume was being manipulated or there was some kind of trading volume mirroring going on. Once this news broke, ASTER's price plummeted like a slide, dropping nearly 10% in 24 hours, falling from 2.08 to 1.84. The total locked value (TVL) also took a hit, decreasing by over 362 million. And it didn't stop there; DeFiLlama's founder 0xngmi even came out and said that ASTER couldn't even provide basic data such as who placed and executed orders. What else could that be but guilt? Now, investors have completely lost trust in it.
Tokens are all in the hands of a few people, the risk is frighteningly high.
The distribution of ASTER tokens is too unfair; the top 10 wallets hold 96 ASTER, causing an inevitable price crash, right? This risk is like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at any moment. The community is in an uproar, questioning whether this project is just to benefit insiders.
The airdrop is a mess, internal conflicts have intensified.
The originally scheduled airdrop was delayed to October 20, 2025, due to 'issues with token distribution data'. This significantly impacted investors' confidence. A community member, Quinten (048.eth), claimed he brought over 100 million in trading volume and more than 250 users to the project, but only received 338 ASTER, which was an unfair reward distribution. The community is outraged and strongly demands the team to re-examine the airdrop data. Even more frustrating is that the airdrop unlocked 4% of the token supply, about 320 million $ASTER, with no lock-up period. This is like throwing a bomb into the market, suddenly increasing the selling pressure and causing prices to continue to drop.
The technical products are full of vulnerabilities, and the user experience is terrible.
At the end of September 2025, the XPL perpetual contract had a major issue, with prices suddenly becoming abnormal, and many leveraged positions were forcibly liquidated. The platform had no choice but to compensate users, which exposed the system's poor stability. The project's CEO 'Leonard' (who also keeps it anonymous, with a hooded avatar, one wonders what he's thinking) admitted that ASTER is far behind competitors in terms of mobile usability and trading depth, leading to a particularly poor user experience. Also, the ALP (Automated Market Maker Pool) model has design issues. If the overall traders are making profits, those providing liquidity to the project would incur significant losses. Moreover, if the market fluctuates sharply, it could trigger chain liquidations, causing the entire platform to suffer.
The relationship with Binance is unclear, and troubles keep arising.
$ASTER's advisor is CZ, the founder of Binance, and several former Binance employees are also involved in the project. This raises suspicion that it might be a shadow project of Binance. Although CZ publicly states he hasn't invested and Binance has no official involvement, people still don't believe it, fearing there might be undisclosed benefits involved. Furthermore, this relationship intensifies the suspicion of manipulated trading volume, because that 'perfectly correlated trading volume data' looks like someone is controlling it from behind.
Other risks are also piling up, making matters worse.
$ASTER's core founder/CEO 'Leonard' doesn't even dare to reveal his true identity, just a hooded avatar, with no information at all. This project seems too unreliable, leaving people with no sense of security. It also faces fierce competition from rivals like Hyperliquid, and many institutional investors have turned to competitors due to a lack of trust, causing its market share to continuously decline. As a decentralized derivatives exchange, it has to deal with increasingly stringent scrutiny from global regulatory bodies, leading to particularly high compliance risks. Looking at its code updates, GitHub records show only two code submissions in the past three months, which is a stark contrast to its claims of 'zero-knowledge proof privacy trading' and these technological innovations, raising concerns about whether its development progress can keep up.
Currently, ASTER is indeed caught in a triple dilemma of trust crisis, liquidity risk, and product challenges. The accusations of data fraud and the high concentration of tokens are like two knives, cutting away investors' confidence. Although the official team is trying to stabilize the situation through buybacks and adjustments to the airdrop, until these core issues are resolved, ASTER's price is likely to continue falling. Investors need to be careful not to get trapped further. The market is changing rapidly; walking alone is lonely. Follow me for daily spot potential layouts and bull market strategy layouts.
