Interview with Aster CEO Leonard: From Investment Banking to Web3, How Aster Reconstructs DEX Privacy, Efficiency, and Governance with "Pragmatism"

In this issue's interview, we invited Mable, co-founder of Trends, and Leonard, CEO of the Perp DEX giant Aster, for an in-depth conversation. Leonard shared in detail his journey from traditional investment banking technology to Web3 entrepreneurship, and systematically introduced Aster's product philosophy and strategic layout. Aster is no longer a traditional Perptual Futures DEX, but has evolved into a multi-chain comprehensive trading platform that aims to become an "on-chain mainstream CEX."

Leonard elaborated on how Aster attempts to design "dark pools" in on-chain trading to balance privacy and transparency; how to plan token distribution and incentive mechanisms to promote fairness; and candidly reviewed the lessons learned from the XPL incident. He also revealed Aster Chain's positioning - an infrastructure focused on "trading credit aggregation and verifiability" rather than another L1 ecosystem. The entire interview not only reveals Aster's pragmatic strategies in products, incentives, and technology, but also provides valuable insights into how the new generation of decentralized trading platforms seeks breakthroughs in a complex environment.

Leonard's Web3 Entrepreneurial Journey: From High-Frequency Trading to DeFi Innovation

Leonard's career began in a technical position at an investment bank in Hong Kong, focusing on the development of high-frequency trading systems and risk engines. He has experienced two waves of entrepreneurship from traditional finance to Web3.

• Lessons from Fintech: In 2015-2016, he started his first venture, entering the Asian B-end fintech lending platform, but ultimately failed due to regulatory issues and chaos in the industry.
• Introduction to Blockchain: After his first entrepreneurial failure, Leonard encountered blockchain in 2016. Initially attracted by ICOs, he later developed a strong interest in the underlying technology due to investment failures, attempting to put loan information on-chain and learning about IBM's Hyperledger.
• The Birth of Aster: After years of exploration and trial and error, he joined the DeFi project Injective Finance in 2019, and later, inspired by dYdX and GMX, conceived and founded Aster, aiming to build an on-chain trading platform.

Leonard emphasized that Aster's growth is a continuous process of iteration and trial and error, with the goal of creating products that the market truly needs.

Aster's Positioning and Grand Goals: On-chain Mainstream CEX

Leonard believes that Aster's positioning has transcended the traditional sense of a Perptual Futures DEX.

• Comprehensive Multi-Chain Platform: Although it originally started with BNB Chain Perptual Futures, Aster now supports multiple chains such as Arbitrum, OP, Linea, and Solana, and offers spot trading products (attracting a large number of users due to the demand for Aster Token purchases).
• Capital Efficiency: Aster is also one of the largest yield asset providers on the BNB Chain (such as USDS and aUSDT), aiming to improve users' capital efficiency—allowing users to earn yields while using these assets as collateral to participate in trading.
• Beyond CEX: Aster's true competitor is not other DEXs, but CEX itself. Leonard's ultimate goal is to create a "complete and composable DEX product matrix," and within five years hopes that the DEX industry can fully surpass CEX, with Aster becoming a leader among them.

Core Value Proposition: Aster's core advantage lies in its completely on-chain construction, providing self-custody and transparency, as well as a flexible and agile governance model brought about by decentralization.

Strategies and Controversies: Dark Pool Design, Token Distribution, and XPL Lessons

The Paradox of Dark Pool Design

Aster launched the "Dark Pool" design on the first day of the product launch, allowing users to trade orders with hidden directions and quantities.

• Source of the concept: Leonard was inspired by the debate on on-chain transparency between CZ and James Wynn, believing that the enormous size of dark pools/OTC in TradFi indicates a potential demand for "privacy preference" in on-chain financial transactions.
• The conflict between transparency and privacy: Leonard confessed that there is currently no method for "public verification" of hidden order fairness, as post-factum inferred transaction content undermines the privacy mechanism. He acknowledged that the current privacy preferences of retail investors are not as strong as expected.
• Institutional participation is key: Leonard believes that the success of dark pools mainly depends on institutional entry, but the current anonymous, non-KYC status is a barrier for most institutions. He speculates that in the future, Prop Trading high-frequency funds may start to test the waters in 1-2 years.

Token Distribution and Fairness

In response to external doubts about the Token "96% concentrated in a few addresses," Leonard clarified:

• Transparent Lock-up: At least 80% of the Tokens are in an on-chain verifiable and transparent lock-up state, with 50% allocated for airdrops (clearly distributed).
• Misunderstanding of the contract address: The largest wallet address is actually the asset contract address, used for users to conduct spot trading, and the tokens within are not all controlled by Aster.
• Investors: Yzi Labs is the sole private investor, investing in equity rather than the Token itself, obtaining a small share of Tokens with no intention of cashing out, and having long-term confidence in the project's value.

Genesis Phase II Point Program

Aster is conducting the second phase of its points program, allocating a total of 4% of the total supply, aiming to fairly and evenly distribute it to loyal users who genuinely participate in trading and long-term holders.

• Incentive Effect: After the announcement of this plan, Aster's daily trading volume once surpassed other Perptual Futures DEX, becoming the number one in trading volume.
• Reward distribution rhythm: To avoid a significant selling pressure caused by the immediate release of the 4% reward, the project party will retain a flexible release rhythm, but the specific amount obtained by users will be disclosed immediately and transparently after the end of the second quarter.

XPL event review and oracle challenges

Leonard candidly reviewed the incident where the pricing configuration error of the XPL Perptual Futures led to a price surge:

• Maximum error: The issue is that XPL is stuck in "pre-market mode", where pricing can only rely on the internal matching book rather than the public market price, resulting in incorrect internal allocation leading to an erroneous price.
• Post-processing: Aster immediately reverted to the regular Perptual Futures mode and fully compensated the affected users.
• Future improvements: Even for pre-market perpetual futures, external pre-market market oracle prices will be introduced as a reference.
• Limitations of tokenized stocks: Due to the limitations of oracles like Pyth, Aster is temporarily unable to provide 7x24 hour tokenized stock trading services. Only index-based assets like the Nasdaq index, which has a futures market supporting 23 hours of price data, may be able to open for nearly 24 hours of trading.

Aster Chain, Buyback Strategy and User Experience

Aster Chain's positioning: verifiability rather than a new ecosystem

The goal of Aster Chain is not to establish another "universal L1", but to serve as an infrastructure, focusing on transparency and verifiability.

• Core Function: Hope to aggregate all on-chain transaction credits, allowing everyone to verify these transactions.
• Pragmatic strategy: In the short term, we will focus on providing a good trading environment and user experience. Building a complete ecosystem is the long-term direction, but "there are already enough chains now," and we should not disperse our efforts.

pragmatic repurchase strategy

Leonard has a pragmatic attitude towards buybacks and opposes rigid, predictable fixed mechanisms.

• Flexibility First: Aster will allocate a certain percentage of its revenue for buybacks, but will not commit to a fixed timetable or ratio, in order to retain the autonomy for optimal allocation based on revenue and project stages.
• Value Maximization: He believes that in the early stages of a project, allocating funds to invest in teams and partnerships to drive growth is more valuable than using 100% for buybacks.
• Execution and Transparency: The execution of the buyback needs a certain degree of flexibility to improve efficiency, but after the buyback is completed, all information must be made public and transparent, recorded on-chain for everyone to supervise.

User Experience and Multi-Device Layout

• Grid Trading: Launched a long time ago, it not only helps non-professional traders run strategies but also allows them to become liquidity providers through limit order trading, achieving a win-win situation.
• Changes in User Composition: Before the TGE, users mainly came from Asia. After the TGE, there is a noticeable increase in interest from the Western world, and the user composition is becoming global.
• Mobile End and Cooperation: Aster already has an Android version, the iOS version is in the application process for listing, and is actively collaborating with wallets such as Trust Wallet and SafePal, providing users with a more convenient multi-chain trading entry through API or front-end construction.

Conclusion

Leonard's interview outlines a clear development blueprint for DEX: evolving from single Perptual Futures to a multi-chain integrated trading platform with CEX-level functionality and core Web3 values. His advocated "pragmatism" is reflected in the cautious exploration of dark pools, the fine balance of Token incentives, and the pragmatic positioning of Aster Chain. Under the multiple pressures of regulation, privacy, and market competition, Aster is attempting to rebuild the experience of centralized exchanges with agility and transparency, aiming to ultimately surpass them. This combination of the rigor of financial technology and the openness of Web3 provides a strong direction for the future development of the entire decentralized trading sector.

What do you think of Leonard's positioning of "Credit Aggregation" regarding Aster Chain? Do you believe this can effectively address the long-term challenges of trust and efficiency faced by DEX?