Conversation with Aster CEO: The market trend has shifted, the real demand and underlying logic of Perp DEX

Written by: Joe Zhou, Foresight News

Interviewee: Leonard, CEO of Aster

The trend in the crypto market is quietly changing.

“In the past, you simply couldn’t imagine that trading volume of gold and oil on a Perp DEX (decentralized contract platform) could surpass Solana or XRP. But now, these two RWAs (real-world assets) have firmly entered the top five in our platform’s trading volume and have become the norm.”

Aster CEO Leonard uses a set of simple yet impactful data points to tear apart the long-standing grand narrative of the industry.

In his view, the market trend has shifted because users’ core needs have changed. Without the filter of wealth creation myths, everyone now only pays for genuine trading experiences.

Leonard states: “Today’s leading Perp DEXs have fully matched centralized exchanges (CEX) in matching speed, order book depth, and fee costs. In fact, by stripping away the complexity of traditional delivery contracts, they have even surpassed them in trading experience.”

“Decentralizing for decentralization’s sake is the biggest false demand in this industry,” Leonard bluntly says. “Users will never pay solely for the words ‘decentralized.’ Only when your underlying experience matches or exceeds that of CEXs will your decentralization and self-custody of funds become truly dominant advantages.”

On the occasion of Aster’s first anniversary, we sat down with Leonard for a more “unpackaged” conversation. No visions, only reality: market trends, surviving the bear market, effective innovation, and how a top-tier DEX can survive in this “virtual to real” brutal market cycle.

Market trend has changed

Joe Zhou: Recently, which assets have performed the best on your platform?

Leonard: Definitely gold and oil. From a growth perspective, they are the most vigorous. Currently, gold and oil have entered our top five in trading volume. In the past, you simply couldn’t imagine that on a Perp DEX, a RWA trading pair’s volume could surpass Solana or XRP. But now, this has become the norm on our platform.

Joe Zhou: The market is constantly changing, and traders’ attention is shifting. How do you observe and capture these hot spots?

Leonard: Every market cycle has different hot spots. For example, recent geopolitical tensions have caused enough volatility in gold and oil, and traders love volatility. Honestly, three months ago, no one expected gold and oil to be so hot on-chain.

As a long-term trading platform, our focus isn’t on betting on the next hot spot, but on building solid underlying liquidity and matching infrastructure. We aim to ensure that no matter what asset cycle shifts to, the platform can respond quickly and enable trading at any time. Although traditional financial assets are now seeing increased trading ratios, we don’t rule out a return to a bull market in six months, which could bring back volatility in small crypto assets. The key for the platform is to have the capacity to adapt to these changes at any moment.

Joe Zhou: In the past three months, are most trades on Aster driven by retail investors or institutions?

Leonard: Recently, the proportion of institutional users on Aster has indeed increased.

On one hand, it’s due to the market environment. In a bear market, retail traders have less active capital to deploy, while institutional funds relying on stable arbitrage strategies are less affected. On the other hand, and more importantly, is because Aster’s core feature—“privacy trading”—is a rigid demand for some institutions.

For large traders and quant firms, their strategies are absolutely confidential. Once exposed on a transparent chain, they become ineffective. With the launch of our privacy features, many institutional users are migrating their funds specifically to address this pain point.

Joe Zhou: Has there been a structural change in retail trading behavior?

Leonard: Retail traders’ demand for “yield-bearing assets” has increased significantly in volatile markets.

They realize that pure trading is becoming harder to profit from, so they need a guaranteed minimum return. For example, USDF on our platform, and recently USD1 with yield attributes, fit their current mindset perfectly: they can let their funds earn a stable coin yield passively, and when opportunities arise, they can use it as collateral to open positions. This is a fast-growing direction among retail users.

Joe Zhou: What do you think the next cycle will look like? How will it differ most from this one?

Leonard: That’s a question no one can give an absolute answer to—if they knew, they’d have already done it (laughs).

But one clear trend is: projects in this cycle are increasingly close to real-world business needs. Previously, many projects were driven by “narratives”—the bigger the pie they painted, the larger the vision, the higher the valuation. But that no longer works.

Now, the market values real users and real revenue: how much fee income do you generate? How much real cash can be used for token buybacks? So, I believe the next cycle’s underlying logic will increasingly resemble traditional finance, with higher demands on project fundamentals and cash flow.

Survive, then keep experimenting at high frequency

Joe Zhou: Many say we are now in a bear market. If that’s true, it’s probably Aster’s first bear market. How do you think a project team should survive a bear market?

Leonard: I think it’s not just the bear market—regardless of the market condition, cash flow is the most vital lifeline.

If you are a long-term builder, you must have a good product and a viable business model to attract paying users. Then, you need to price your product reasonably, generate revenue, and use a healthy tokenomics to return value to holders.

Focusing on these three aspects, the bear market can actually be an excellent period for building. Without the noise of a bull market, you can focus more on iterating your product and recruiting talent who can work steadily. As long as you maintain positive cash flow to get through the winter, you will naturally reach new heights in the next bull run.

Joe Zhou: What is your current main revenue structure?

Leonard: Essentially, it’s transaction fees. Over 80% of our income comes from fees. That’s why we emphasize the importance of user quality—our revenue depends on real trades, real traders paying fees, which sustains our cash flow.

Joe Zhou: Over the past year, with so many competitors building Perp DEXs, what is the core logic that has allowed Aster to “deliver on time,” survive, and stay at the top?

Leonard: There are two core principles: respect for risk control, and a rapid trial-and-error mechanism.

First, risk control. Our team has a deep background in centralized exchanges and naturally emphasizes risk management. In crypto, choosing the right track is important, but survival is even more critical. Every cycle brings new opportunities, and only by surviving can you have a chance to take off again.

Second, rapid trial-and-error. Many Perp DEXs try to perfect their products and improve data before launching a TGE. But the market is unpredictable. Instead of chasing the “perfect timing,” it’s better to deliver products quickly and let the market give feedback. The market is the best teacher. Rather than internal deliberation, launch early and let users vote with their feet, with the market price giving the answer. We insist on: deliver first, optimize later, rather than waiting for a so-called “perfect moment.” Of course, we look for suitable windows, but we don’t obsess over perfection.

Another point is, outsiders often see only the few times we hit the right opportunities, but they don’t see the many unsuccessful attempts behind. Our approach is: as long as we don’t shake cash flow or take on systemic risks, we keep doing small-scale experiments repeatedly.

In the long run, what you need is a mechanism like this: continuous trial, acceptance of failure. In innovation, if your hit rate reaches 10–20%, that’s already very high.

Joe Zhou: With the market environment changing, what is one core judgment you’ve recently changed?

Leonard: Actually, change is the norm, especially in a relatively new field. How to correctly pivot is a crucial decision-making skill for startups.

Different stages have different demands. For example, initially, we focused on TVL (Total Value Locked) and trading volume, launching aggressive incentives to attract users. But as competitors completed their TGE, market expectations shifted. People no longer blindly trust absolute trading volume but look through the numbers to assess “user quality.”

So now, our focus has shifted from simply chasing TVL to deeply monitoring OI (Open Interest). What we truly care about now is: how to filter the highest quality users in the funnel, create an excellent experience for them, and make them willing to stay and pay fees even without any airdrop expectations.

Joe Zhou: What role do market makers play in your ecosystem? What are your requirements for them?

Leonard: An exchange essentially sells liquidity, and market makers are the core suppliers of that liquidity. So they are definitely a vital part.

In some highly competitive mainstream tokens, the importance of a single market maker may decrease. But for our recent focus on RWAs (like on-chain stocks, commodities, precious metals, oil), market makers are extremely important because initial liquidity for these assets on-chain is very scarce.

Our requirements for market makers are not just placing orders but also their cross-market hedging ability. Market makers usually don’t bear unilateral risk; when they take on retail oil longs on Aster, they must have the technical capacity to instantly hedge positions across traditional finance (like CME) at very low cost. The ability to provide this cross-market hedging infrastructure is a rare competitive advantage, and many exchanges need this capability.

Popping bubbles, removing falsehoods

Joe Zhou: What do you think is the biggest “false demand” in Web3?

Leonard: This question might offend many, but my consistent view is: the biggest false demand is “decentralization for decentralization’s sake.”

Users will never pay solely for the words “decentralized”; they pay for actual product experience. The last two cycles’ DEXs might be extremely decentralized in architecture, but due to slow speeds, high slippage, and expensive fees, they were ultimately abandoned by users.

That’s why this round of Perp DEXs has taken off. Because in terms of experience, we’ve matched or even surpassed CEXs. Only when speed, depth, and fees meet certain standards will “decentralization” (funds self-custody, transparent verification) become a decisive advantage. If you start by sacrificing experience for pure decentralization, it’s doomed to be self-indulgent.

Joe Zhou: Which demands do you think are seriously overestimated in the industry? Conversely, what are the real needs validated by the market?

Leonard: Instead of judging who is overestimated, it’s better to see what is truly validated. Perp (perpetual contracts) has already proven to be the most straightforward and efficient real demand.

It removes the complexity of settlement found in traditional options or futures contracts—just need an oracle feed to open longs or shorts. Now, trading oil and gold with Perp is so smooth, it truly solves pain points.

Joe Zhou: When meeting these real demands, why did Hyperliquid and Aster ultimately choose to build on L1 mainnets? Are L1s necessary and irreplaceable? Can’t L2s do the job?

Leonard: The current cycle has proven a reality: users don’t care whether you are L1 or L2. What matters is—do they perceive the cost? The ideal experience is that users trade seamlessly without even noticing whether it’s L1 or L2.

Under this premise, developing a proprietary L1 offers stronger customization and system resilience, with more room for performance and design trade-offs.

It’s not that L2 can’t do it, but if you develop on a general-purpose L2, you face many performance compromises. For us, there’s a clear bottom line: no matter the trade-offs, user experience must not be sacrificed. To achieve ultimate matching speed and privacy, building an independent L1 is a more rational path at this stage.

Joe Zhou: Is there really no chance for L2?

Leonard: Not necessarily. The interesting thing about this industry is—if a team truly identifies an overlooked user pain point, even on L2, it can achieve 5x or 10x growth in a short time.

So, the ultimate winner isn’t the “technical route” itself, but who can find the “right business answer” earlier and more accurately.

Talking about Hyperliquid: Our bigger and shared competitor is CEX.

Joe Zhou: People often compare Aster and Hyperliquid. How do you see the core differences between the two?

Leonard: Hyperliquid has many aspects worth learning from. But the DEX market is large enough to support multiple players serving different niche groups.

In the long run, Hyperliquid is pursuing a more “ecosystem-oriented” development path, emphasizing permissionless access and fairness for front-end and asset partners. Our focus, however, is on breaking inward—improving “trading experience and product innovation.” Specifically, there are three key differences:

First, service philosophy. Hyperliquid takes a techie route; we have a larger team and more emphasis on operations. We’re willing to provide more warm guidance to retail users and offer seamless VIP onboarding for large traders.

Second, asset strategy. We believe crypto’s gene is inherently craving high-volatility assets. While embracing traditional RWAs, we are more aggressive in launching early-stage, high-volatility small tokens. Some assets, especially those needing liquidity, can really only be found on Aster.

Third, our core barrier—privacy. Many don’t realize the importance of privacy until they experience it. Once institutions and large traders experience chain privacy trading, they can’t go back.

In fact, different customization routes for the two platforms are beneficial for the entire Perp DEX track. Because our common and bigger competitor is ultimately the centralized exchange (CEX). Our shared goal is to attract traditional CEX users.

Joe Zhou: What do you think is the most overhyped aspect of the entire Perp DEX track (including Hyperliquid and Aster)?

Leonard: I believe that any “number one” title is overestimated.

This market is still very early. Six months ago, no one thought the top position could be challenged; but over time, rankings have shifted multiple times, with gaps widening and reshuffling.

This precisely shows that being a stage leader doesn’t mean having a real moat. In this industry, the landscape in 3 or 6 months is unpredictable. What truly matters is whether you’ve found a unique advantage.

Because there’s still a lot of unverified space in this field, once you identify the right direction and solve a pain point, growth can be 5x or 10x. Becoming number one is a result of doing the right things, not the goal itself.

For us, daily thoughts aren’t about holding onto first or second place, or watching a specific competitor, but about creating a product that can attract 10x more users and bring CEX users over. That’s more important and interesting than obsessing over rivals.

Joe Zhou: How do you capture market hot spots and real needs?

Leonard: The first principle is to talk more with your users and community. The more you talk, the more intuition you develop about what they truly care about.

You need to return to first principles: what do users ultimately pursue? Making money, saving money, fund security. Based on this framework, you then seek unmet market needs.

If everyone in the market agrees that something is right (like everyone saying AI is the future), jumping on the AI bandwagon won’t give you an advantage. You need to leverage your cultivated market intuition and understanding of users to explore those overlooked or not yet correctly targeted real needs. That’s our logic for finding hot spots.

Joe Zhou: You often mention “protocol-level order book.” Compared to AMMs like Uniswap, what are the efficiency limits of order books?

Leonard: There’s definitely a difference in underlying TPS performance, but I think the fundamental distinction isn’t speed—it’s that order books (Orderbook) support trading methods that are completely different from traditional AMMs.

On an order book, you can set more diverse order types and dynamically adjust strategies based on the order book’s depth and price structure. In traditional finance, the entire infrastructure has long been based on order books, giving rise to highly mature quantitative trading models.

This is also why this round of Perp DEXs can capture such a high market share. Because institutional, professional quant firms, and heavy traders are naturally more accustomed to and prefer trading on order books.

So, performance improvement is just one aspect. Fundamentally, if you want to migrate traditional quant teams and high-net-worth heavy traders onto chain, you must provide them with the most familiar and convenient order book architecture, rather than forcing them to adapt to AMM.

Mainnet launch, a new journey

Joe Zhou: From a small team of dozens of developers to supporting an entire blockchain ecosystem, what changes have occurred in your team’s gene over this year?

Leonard: As the team grows, the most immediate issue is that communication costs inevitably increase. To maintain our initial execution capability during expansion, our biggest internal change is: systematically advancing goal quantification and truly decentralizing decision-making.

We still maintain a very flat structure. Now, each person is given clear, measurable business targets, and the resource allocation and decision rights are fully delegated to frontline implementers. Everyone is responsible for the same goal and has the authority to make judgments based on frontline conditions. We absolutely don’t want the company’s larger size to reduce agility and fall behind market changes.

Joe Zhou: How many people does Aster have now?

Leonard: Exact numbers are not very public, but currently, the team has roughly increased by about five times compared to before.

Joe Zhou: Over the past year, Aster has made a leap from DEX to independent L1. Which moments made you feel that Aster truly “transformed”?

Leonard: There are three main turning points.

First, our decision to develop privacy. In June last year, after internal discussion, we spent 20 days building the privacy feature. We’ve always wanted to do it, and when market demand started to ferment, we seized the opportunity and went all in.

Second, successfully passing the TGE (token issuance). Many people recognized Aster because of that successful token launch. Expectations were very high, and the price reflected that, which was a lot of pressure—what you might call a “blessed trouble.” But after the token launch, our trading volume surged, the business model was proven viable, and the platform gained stable positive cash flow and started buybacks. This showed we not only caught the right wind but executed well enough to sustain long-term growth.

Third, the recent mainnet launch. Our long-held vision finally materialized at the core level—this is a fundamental change.

Joe Zhou: Can you explain the significance of launching the mainnet? How is it different from before?

Leonard: The most direct significance is—everything we’ve talked about before is now implemented in the underlying code.

For users, they don’t care whether you are L1 or L2; they just want a seamless, smooth experience. But for our development team, to implement “privacy” and the ultimate “order book” matching, relying on a general-purpose L2 would face performance limitations. Building an independent L1 application chain gives us maximum customization and control, allowing us to dedicate all performance to trading experience.

Joe Zhou: How much money can the independent mainnet save users who are afraid of being “sandwiched” (MEV)?

Leonard: Being sandwiched (MEV attacks) on a general chain is a perpetual pain point for retail traders. Aster, as an independent application chain, runs the matching process entirely within trusted nodes. Our underlying mechanism fundamentally eliminates the space for malicious third-party transaction ordering or MEV. This means every cent of users’ principal is genuinely used for trading, with no hidden costs.

Joe Zhou: You repeatedly emphasize “privacy,” which often conflicts with “compliance.” How does Aster hide institutional trading signals while meeting increasingly strict regulatory requirements?

Leonard: That’s an excellent question. Aster’s privacy isn’t the traditional “black box” like Monero.

Our core logic is: return data disclosure rights to users. On-chain, order books and fund flows are encrypted and trace-resistant by default. But when facing compliance audits, users can generate a “View Key.” By giving this key to regulators, they can verify all transaction records, positions, and sources of funds transparently and completely on-chain.

We don’t deprive the ability for on-chain public verification; we just let you precisely choose “who sees what.” This creates a perfect closed loop for compliance.

Joe Zhou: After mainnet launch, what specific empowerment does the ASTER token have in staking?

Leonard: With staking, Aster is no longer just a trading platform but a truly decentralized network. Stakers not only capture system value but also participate in future governance of “permissionless infrastructure and open protocols.” In the future, stakers will decide the development direction of this ecosystem.

Joe Zhou: If you rate Aster’s performance over the past year, what score would you give? How do you plan to address the shortcomings in Q2?

Leonard: To leave room for progress, I’d give the team 60 points (passing).

In Q2, we have several key focuses: 1. Persist in RWA track—continue expanding liquidity advantages. 2. Open up underlying infrastructure—allow traditional asset issuers or AI trading agents to easily build their own front-end applications based on Aster’s matching and liquidity network in a permissionless way. 3. Drive a major privacy user migration—our privacy features are ready, and we will assist institutions and retail traders with strong privacy needs to migrate.

Joe Zhou: One last question—if you could start over and choose to go all-in on one track, what would it be?

Leonard: The answer is simple: still all-in on Perp DEX. In fact, that’s exactly what we’re doing every day.

In my view, committing fully to any track must pass two brutal standards: First, does this track create real value? Can it solve genuine needs, establish a viable business model, and give back to the ecosystem? Second, what is your team good at? Why can you break into the top 5% of this track?

The ceiling for derivatives is very high, but competition is fierce. It’s a market dominated by the top 5%, capturing 80% of profits. If your team can’t reach the top 5%, then no matter how attractive or grand the narrative, it’s not worth betting on.

Trading infrastructure is what our team excels at and is part of our DNA. The market is large enough, the business logic is sound, and its value has been repeatedly proven in the past two cycles. Once we are confident in this, we will go all-in and fight to the end.