Gate Decentralized Finance Daily ( September 22, ): Arthur Hayes reveals the reason for the dumping of HYPE; ASTER skyrockets, driving the PerpDEX track.

On September 22, the crypto market struggled to break the “September curse” with an overall fall, and the total DeFi TVL fell below the $160 billion mark, dropping to approximately $156.617 billion, a decline of about 3.03% in 24 hours. The daily volume of DEX is about $15.713 billion. PancakeSwap and Uniswap rank first and second respectively, while Meteora remains active. At the same time, Aster (ASTER) has become the market's focus today, attracting significant attention from funds and the community. Mainstream tokens in the zone are generally under pressure, with WLFI, UNI, AAVE, CRV and others experiencing significant declines.

Overview of the Decentralized Finance Market

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Total DeFi TVL across the network: The overall crypto market is experiencing a fall, with the “September curse” reappearing; the total DeFi TVL across the network has dropped below the $160 billion mark, currently at $156.617 billion, a decrease of 3.03% in the last 24 hours.

DEX 24-hour volume: approximately $15.713 billion, with the top three being: PancakeSwap ($3.568 billion), Uniswap ($2.682 billion), Meteora ($1.348 billion).

Popular Protocols and On-Chain Performance

According to TVL, the top ten DeFi protocol data is as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Among them, the data performance of the top-ranked protocols is as follows:

Aave: TVL approximately 41.608 billion USD, daily fall of 3.22%;

Lido: TVL approximately 36.711 billion USD, decreased by 4.08% in a single day;

EigenLayer: TVL approximately 18.016 billion USD, daily decrease of 5.54%;

Ethena: TVL approximately 14.201 billion USD, daily decrease of 0.09%;

Pendle: TVL approximately $12.961 billion, decreased by 1.95% in a single day.

In addition, the top ten projects ranked by protocol fees in the past 24 hours are as follows:

(Source: DeFiLlama)

Among them, Aave's protocol fees in the past 24 hours reached 3.51 million USD, ranking third after Tether and Circle; Uniswap ranked fourth with protocol fees of 3.16 million USD in the past 24 hours; Lido ranked fifth with 2.94 million USD.

Project News Overview

1. Falcon Finance officially announced on X the qualification results for the public sale of the FF Token, with a total of over 190,000 users passing the KYC certification of Buidlpad. Approximately 32.88 million USD was staked through the Buidlpad HODL activity. For all eligible users, the subscription window is only open for 1 day, and users must complete the subscription using USD1 before 10:00 UTC on September 23 (18:00 Beijing Time).

2. Fragmetric announced officially on X that Fragmetric Labs and DeFi Development Corp (NASDAQ:DFDV) will launch the first Solana digital asset vault in South Korea through the acquisition of a listed company in Korea.

3. Arthur Hayes forwarded the analysis article “The Sword of Damocles for HYPE” and stated, “This is the reason for today's sale of 96,600 HYPE. But don't worry, a 126-fold increase is still possible, and 2028 is still a long way off.” This morning, Arthur Hayes sold 96,600 HYPE, worth 5.1 million USD. Just three weeks ago, he predicted that the price of HYPE could rise 126 times in the coming years.

The analysis mentions that HYPE is about to face its real test. Starting from November 29, 2025, 237.8 million HYPE Tokens will begin to unlock linearly over 24 months. Calculated at $50 per token, this amounts to $11.9 billion in team unlock funds, with nearly $500 million worth of tokens entering the market each month. The analysis points out that the current buyback capacity can only absorb about 17% of the unlocked tokens, leaving an excess supply of about $410 million/month. The token unlock is a potential “Sword of Damocles.”

4. Vitalik Buterin stated that for a long time, there has been a balance problem between “economic sustainability” and “idealistic goals” within the Ethereum community. Previously, the high-yield opportunities were mainly in NFTs, Meme coins, or high-risk DeFi, while applications that genuinely align with Ethereum's vision lacked sufficient economic support. Now, as various protocols mature and security improves, low-risk DeFi is becoming a core growth point for Ethereum, focusing on payments, savings, synthetic assets, and fully collateralized lending, which not only contributes significant transaction fees but also offers inclusive value, providing global users with transparent, stable, and permissionless financial services.

This can be likened to “searching for Google”: search and advertising support Google's business model, while low-risk DeFi is expected to provide long-term, robust economic support for Ethereum. At the same time, it avoids speculation and cultural misalignment issues, which is highly consistent with Ethereum's decentralized spirit.

On September 21, according to official data, the trading volume of ASTERUSDT perpetual contracts (4.287 billion USD) on mainstream CEX contract platforms surpassed that of BTCUSDT perpetual contracts (3.617 billion USD), currently ranking second in the trading volume leaderboard, with ETHUSDT perpetual contracts (6.001 billion USD) in first place.

6. According to monitoring by Lookonchain, a whale has purchased 7.14 million ASTER (10.5 million USD) through 2 wallets (0x2204 and 0xAF37) in the past 3 days. This whale deposited 4.5 million USDT into Aster and then withdrew 7.14 million ASTER (10.5 million USD), currently holding an unrealized profit of 6 million USD.

Overview of Major Leading DeFi Projects

Driven by the Aster craze, the 24-hour trading volume of BSC DEX surged to the top, reaching approximately $4.405 billion, with an increase of 43.45% over the past week, and the top three projects are:

PancakeSwap ($3.373 billion), Uniswap ($758.66 million), THENA ($8.859 million);

Solana DEX ranks second in 24-hour volume, approximately $3.861 billion, with the top three projects being:

Meteora ($1.348 billion), Raydium ($767.97 million), HumidiFi ($580.38 million);

Ethereum DEX 24-hour volume ranks third, at approximately 2.453 billion USD, with the top three projects being:

Uniswap (1.165 billion USD), Fluid (595.56 million USD), Pendle (227.35 million USD).

Gate DeFi zone Token market data

According to the data from Gate's market page, the price performance of the top ten Tokens in the DeFi zone is as follows:

(Source: Gate DeFi Sector Quotes)

As of September 22, at the time of writing, the crypto market has experienced a widespread fall, with a total liquidation of 1.7 billion dollars across the network in 24 hours, and the bears have suffered heavy losses; the tokens in the DeFi zone have also declined simultaneously, specifically:

WLFI is currently reported at 0.2157 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 7.66%;

UNI is currently at 8.15 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 10.81%;

AAVE is currently reported at 265.35 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 10.6%;

MYX is currently reported at 9.58 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 0.27%;

INJ is currently priced at $12.43, with a 24-hour fall of 10.21%;

CRV is currently priced at 0.6961 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 12.6%;

MORPHO is currently reported at 1.82 USD, with a 24-hour fall of 9.56%.

Market Trend Analysis

Overall Capital Contraction: Leading protocols such as Aave, Lido, and EigenLayer have all seen a decline of 3%~5% in TVL, indicating a decrease in market risk appetite and a short-term shift of capital towards defense.

Stable Fee Structure: Aave, Uniswap, and Lido continue to rank among the top in protocol fees, indicating that core blue-chip protocols still maintain user activity and trading demand.

DEX Pattern Change: BSC and Solana ecosystem DEXs performed strongly, recording transaction volumes of $4.405 billion and $3.861 billion, respectively; among them, Meteora's transaction volume is close to Uniswap, highlighting the rapid expansion of liquidity on the Solana chain; it is especially worth mentioning that Aster has strongly spurred the PerpDEX boom, leading a new wave of investment trends, and tokens in the same track have also seen varying degrees of increase.

Token market experiences a general fall: Major DeFi tokens such as WLFI, UNI, AAVE, and CRV have generally fallen more than 7% in a single day, reflecting the risk-averse sentiment in the secondary market towards the DeFi zone.

Analyst Views

ASTER is one of the strongest “narrative-driven points” currently: Researchers believe that the increase in ASTER's launch price and the high leverage perpetual contract trading volume both indicate that the market is more easily attracted to emerging Tokens with clear issuance, activities, and liquidity support in the current sluggish environment.

Short-term explosion vs Long-term pressure: Analysts warn that the currency exchange and launch popularity of ASTER can bring short-term volume and liquidity, but its long-term performance will be constrained by factors such as unlocking release and concentrated token distribution. Some early holders face significant profit-taking pressure.

Risk aversion funds flow back to stable protocols: As the overall market sentiment weakens, leading protocols (such as Aave and Lido) have slightly retraced but are still regarded as lower-risk support points. Yield projects (like Pendle and Ethena) still have the ability to attract funds, but macro and policy risks need to be considered.

Community Incentives and Token Mechanisms Become Core Competitiveness: The launch rewards, trading rewards, and token swap mechanisms of ASTER bring significant participation motivation to the market. In the future, if a project wants to gain sustained attention, it must not only have technology / TVL / revenue but also design attractive token economics and community participation mechanisms.