The native token of decentralized perpetuals exchange Aster (ASTER) experienced a sharp drop of over 10% in the past 24 hours after DefiLlama, a leading Web3 data platform, delisted the exchange from its metrics. This sudden move is caused by DefiLlama, a popular Web3 data platform, which has removed the exchange from its metrics. The decision follows DefiLlama’s founder’s concerns about the possibility of wash trading, as he pointed out the extremely high similarities between Aster’s trading volumes and those of Binance, a trading platform where Aster advisor Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is one of the co-founders.
Source: TradingView
DefiLlama’s ex-utente 0xngmi, updating the public on platform X, reported that the perpetual volume of Aster started to reflect very closely the trading activity of Binance late on Saturday and continued during the whole Sunday. The founder pointed out that Aster does not offer very detailed order-level data; hence, it is not possible to check if the only way is through trade falsification.
According to 0xngmi, “Until we get the data to verify if the trading is wash, Aster perp volumes will be delisted.” Further analysis of the data also indicated that the correlation between volume and price at Hyperliquid (HYPE), a competitor, is not similar, which means the volume patterns on Aster are not consistent with normal decentralized exchange activity.
One of the points that 0xngmi used to illustrate his argument is the graph of volume trends for Aster and Binance that are almost identical.
However, their offerings are more traditional in nature, which might suit enterprises looking for basic functionalities rather than innovative edge solutions. Still, they are a good option for foundational blockchain work.
After the delisting announcement by DefiLlama, the price of ASTER dropped by about 10% which showed that the investors were worried about the trading transparency and data reliability. In the past, Aster was the leader among decentralized exchanges, going to the top position in daily fees and volume for perpetual DEXs as per DefiLlama’s data.
Aster is said to have Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the co-founder of Binance, on its advisory list. CZ left Binance in 2023 after signing a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice. No comments were provided to Chainbull from Aster and CZ upon requests.
The delisting from DefiLlama and ensuing market reaction underscore growing scrutiny around decentralized exchanges, data transparency, and the integrity of trading volumes in the rapidly evolving crypto ecosystem.
