This article comes from the Aster community AMA

Translation｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina); Translator｜Ethan (@ethanzhangweb3)

As the privacy track becomes a focal point again, DEXs face not only a battle for traffic but also the ultimate test of underlying architecture and user experience. Nevertheless, most DEXs still struggle to balance performance, transparency, and privacy protection, making it difficult to meet the needs of professional traders and institutional users. Aster is attempting to provide its own answer on how to build a trading ecosystem that combines CEX-level smoothness with a trustworthy DEX environment.

In a community AMA on November 10, Aster CEO Leonard systematically elaborated on Aster's complete roadmap for building an institutional-level DEX centered around its self-developed privacy L1. The discussion covered many topics of community concern, from token economics and market maker plans to global ecosystem expansion.

Below is a summary of the highlights from this AMA by Odaily Planet Daily.

AMA Opening Introduction

Ember: Hello everyone, welcome to Aster's November AMA. I am Ember, responsible for Aster's partnerships. Today we have invited Aster CEO Leonard. First, Leonard, please say hello to everyone!

Leonard: Hello everyone, I am Leonard. For those who may not know me, I previously worked in traditional finance, developing risk engines for stock trading. I am glad to meet everyone, and perhaps some of you have heard me share at different events, but this is our first formal AMA to engage with the community.

Building the community has always been one of our team's focuses. We realized that we had previously fallen short in this area, and now we cannot do without such a strong supporter group.

Aster's vision is to create a DEX with CEX-level performance while maintaining decentralized transparency. Over the past few months, we have achieved several key milestones: the Aster airdrop plan has entered its fourth quarter, we have completed multi-phase product upgrades, launched a new buyback mechanism, and continuously iterated to optimize system performance. At the same time, we have also launched product modules such as spot trading, trading competitions, and Trade & Earn.

These updates will ultimately feedback to the community because every step of Aster's development is deeply driven and influenced by the community. Whether traders, developers, or holders, they are all important components of our ecosystem.

In today's AMA, I hope everyone will speak freely. We have collected questions from the community covering various aspects such as token economics, product roadmap, and governance mechanisms. I will answer as openly as possible and share the key directions for the next few months.

Vision Planning and L1 Mainnet

Ember: The first question is something many people are very concerned about: What is Aster's next roadmap? You mentioned some directions at the Binance Campus event; could you systematically explain Aster's overall vision and subsequent plans to the community?

Leonard: Thank you, Ember. You mentioned the Campus event, but it’s not just that event; we have received a lot of similar feedback in our daily chats and online and offline activities.

The core feedback is that everyone hopes we can further optimize the trading experience. We know that we still have gaps compared to some leading platforms, such as certain features provided by CEXs that we have not fully implemented.

We are doing our utmost to ensure that all these issues can be addressed in a timely manner. After all, we are a trading platform, and this is our core product; we must do it well.

In this regard, our team has been making improvements, including UI/UX adjustments, enhancing matching efficiency, and optimizing regular functions. For example, the highly requested "day mode" feature has been completed and launched. Some users can already experience different color schemes in the interface, and we will continue to optimize based on feedback. These seemingly small changes are actually very important for enhancing the overall user experience.

This part belongs to basic optimization work. Next, we will focus on the infrastructure layer.

You may have heard that we are building an L1 chain belonging to Aster. I have spent most of my recent time on this. Aster has always focused on privacy protection, and recently the topic of privacy has regained attention, such as the strong performance of Zcash. In fact, Aster has long been laying out in this area.

Not long ago, James Wynn and CZ discussed the issue of "overly transparent on-chain environments exposing trading strategies." Aster responded very quickly; within 10 days after that discussion, we launched the hidden order system. Because we firmly believe that privacy is a fundamental right. Protecting traders' buy and sell information from being leaked is crucial for strategy security.

Therefore, we will continue to advance development in this area, aiming to have our privacy chain enter the final testing phase by the end of this year. At that time, we will open more demo versions, testnets, and prototypes, inviting core users to experience them first and see what possibilities they can bring.

Another very important direction in the roadmap is the utility of the token. Our token TGE was very successful, but we hope to maintain that expectation by launching more application scenarios. Currently, we have launched features such as fee discounts, airdrop rewards, and VIP levels, and we will introduce a staking mechanism with corresponding rewards and governance rights. We plan to enrich and concretize the actual use cases of the token in the next two quarters.

In addition, we will also expand more trading categories. Besides traditional crypto assets, we are trying to introduce stock indices, RWA, and other derivative assets. The liquidity of these non-crypto assets is still a shortcoming, but the potential is huge. We will continue to innovate and explore these high-potential innovative markets to avoid missing good opportunities.

At the same time, we hope to provide liquidity support in the early stages of asset formation by collaborating with project parties and issuance platforms, such as IDO platforms, allowing users to participate in new projects earlier. This will make us appear more "Degen," and in the future, we will be more proactive in the rhythm of listing and leverage multiples, allowing users to capture early value opportunities.

Finally, there is ecological cooperation. Aster does not intend to go it alone but hopes to build a growth network with more ecological partners. Currently, we have established integration cooperation with Trust Wallet, and we will launch more wallet, frontend, and regional partner interface support in the future.

From the perspective of new features and ecology, while we continue to focus on core trading and privacy chain development, we will also collaborate with more ecological partners to launch products closely related to trading. For example, I believe Lista is one of our potential partners, providing users with more yield options on the platform, thereby reducing trading costs and improving capital efficiency. In more cutting-edge directions, such as AI, we hope to leverage the power of the ecosystem and community to build rather than develop directly ourselves. We provide trading and liquidity infrastructure, allowing teams skilled in AI to do what they do best. Therefore, you may have noticed that we recently launched AI trading activities. This is precisely to attract ecological partners to join and help us enhance AI capabilities while we focus on providing underlying trading and liquidity support.

These are the key directions for the next two quarters. I hope everyone will soon see more great features and results come to fruition.

Ember: Many community members were surprised by Aster's announcement of self-developed Layer 1. Could you briefly discuss why Aster decided to build its own Layer 1 instead of continuing as a DEX built on existing chains? What problems can Aster's Layer 1 solve that other chains cannot?

Leonard: First of all, I think this is directly related to our vision and mission; we want to achieve a truly decentralized trading environment on-chain while still providing a CEX experience.

Current public chains have many limitations in this regard because their original design purpose was not optimized for trading performance. We need a blockchain that can directly embed matching logic. In other words, core logic such as order placement, matching, and cancellation can be completed at the protocol level, rather than merely treating the blockchain as a place to record data.

This is why we decided to build our own chain. In other words, we need a set of infrastructure that can provide performance close to centralized matching, and existing solutions do not meet this requirement. Therefore, we must take matters into our own hands and create such a dedicated chain.

However, a completely transparent on-chain trading environment also brings some issues. This has actually been debated in the industry for a long time, such as whether the practice of fully public order books, like Hyperliquid, is really necessary.

Many people believe that a completely transparent system poses risks. Because if every position and every order is public, then the strategies of professional traders will be exposed, and many do not want others to know how they trade or how they build trading models.

I also believe this is a problem. When I communicate with some professional institutional traders, they still believe that strategy privacy is crucial. Therefore, we believe that there is indeed a segment of users in the market who need a trading environment that balances performance and privacy.

Our idea is to utilize high-performance blockchain infrastructure while providing users with privacy options. This way, strategies that cannot operate on a completely transparent chain can be realized.

Recently, you may have noticed the performance of Zcash, which has regained attention due to its privacy features. When designing Layer 1, Aster has a similar philosophy. We hope to allow more users and more strategies to operate on-chain through optional privacy mechanisms. In this way, professional strategies, institutional strategies, and even automated strategies can enter the blockchain trading environment while maintaining privacy. This is fundamentally different from other solutions currently on the market.

I believe that when we launch this chain, users will immediately feel its value. Perhaps similar products will emerge later, but we have been laying out in this area for quite some time. We are now working hard to deliver results as soon as possible. I am also confident that once it goes live, it will prove its value and fill the gap that has not yet been met in the current market.

Ember: Can you elaborate on its underlying design? What is Aster's Layer 1 like in terms of architecture and modules? How does it bring actual improvements in performance metrics (such as latency, depth, and cost efficiency)?**

Leonard: I might answer this question from a different perspective. If we only look at performance metrics, such as TPS and latency, currently no chain can surpass centralized databases at the high-frequency trading level. In other words, at this stage, the purpose of building a chain is not to achieve "higher TPS"—because truly high-performance systems are still centralized matching engines.

Therefore, the core goal of designing Aster Layer 1 is not to blindly pursue extreme performance, but to create a chain that is fast enough, but more importantly, has privacy and flexibility, allowing professional traders to migrate their strategies to the chain for execution without altering their original strategies. That is the key. Suppose a quantitative strategy is performing well on a centralized system today; when it migrates to the Aster chain, it can execute without redesigning, simply by connecting to the interfaces on the chain. In terms of performance, we will maintain a TPS level comparable to mainstream public chains, which is sufficient to support our trading needs. The real challenge is not "how fast can we run," but "can we create enough real trading demand to fill the throughput of this chain." The key is not just performance, but how to provide additional value while maintaining CEX-level speed.

In short, we do not pursue superficial performance parameters; instead, we aim to create a chain that is functional, has higher value, and can truly support real trading activities on-chain.

Ember: You mentioned at the previous Binance Campus event that Aster's L1 would achieve an almost "zero Gas" experience. In this case, how will the economic cycle of the system be self-consistent? How will the incentives for validators and the protocol layer be balanced?

Leonard: This is a very good question. When designing the economic model, Aster considered two sources of incentives:

One is the ecological incentive distribution from the protocol layer, where we will use a portion of ecological funds to reward validators;

The second is transaction fee sharing, where the protocol will return a portion of the actual revenue generated by the platform to validators and nodes.

The combination of these two will form a stable and sustainable incentive mechanism.

Unlike many projects that are still in a loss-making state, Aster has achieved continuous positive cash flow, which also enables us to provide ongoing economic support for network operations.

Therefore, even with very low Gas fees, validators can still obtain reasonable returns through transaction sharing and ecological subsidies, maintaining system stability.

Token Economics and Aster Ecosystem

Ember: There is an extended question regarding this. Many users are also asking about staking and the utility of the token. You previously mentioned that there will be more practical use cases in the future. Specifically, when will the staking feature go live? What roles do stakers and validators play in the system? Besides speculation, what actual value does Aster's token bring to long-term holders and active traders?

Leonard: The staking feature is expected to launch alongside our L1 mainnet. Since we need validator nodes to enable the staking mechanism, these two parts will progress in sync.

Currently, our goal is to complete internal testing and testnet release by the end of this year; if all goes well, we plan to officially launch the mainnet in the first quarter of next year.

In fact, users have already seen some applications, such as fee discounts, VIP level systems, and threshold mechanisms for participating in airdrops and events. For example, we required users to hold ASTER tokens to participate in the Rocket Launch event.

Additionally, we are negotiating partnerships with some lending protocols to provide more use cases for the ASTER token through these collaborations. These will gradually go live in the short term, independent of the L1 mainnet launch.

In the long term, holding ASTER tokens will bring more value. Once the L1 mainnet and staking system are both online, we will also introduce a governance mechanism, allowing stakers to participate in on-chain governance voting and ecological parameter decisions, giving the token a more core governance role in the ecosystem.

Ember: Alright, let's talk about a topic closer to traders and institutions: At this stage, what structural advantages does Aster have in perpetual contracts? Compared to products like Hyperliquid, what is Aster's core competitiveness for professional traders or institutional users? Will we be launching more market maker programs or rebate mechanisms in the future to enhance the depth of the order book?

Leonard: Currently, our biggest competitors in the institutional space are not other decentralized perpetual contract platforms, but still CEXs. This is because most institutional trading is still conducted on centralized platforms. The main reason is that they are not yet familiar with DeFi products or do not have enough trust in them.

For them, fund security remains the most important consideration. They have stricter risk control systems and compliance requirements, so their transition to DeFi will be slower.

However, this situation is changing. DeFi perpetual contract platforms do have advantages over CEXs in certain aspects (such as fees), but CEXs are also rapidly lowering barriers and increasing competitiveness.

Especially for institutional players, self-custody is a key issue. They are very aware after the FTX incident that no matter how reputable a CEX is, there is counterparty risk. On-chain, they can personally verify assets and transactions without fully trusting a third party, which is a significant security enhancement for institutional users.

From a product perspective, Aster's perpetual contracts excel in yield efficiency and risk control. While this may only represent a few percentage points of yield difference for ordinary users, for large institutions or high-leverage traders, this efficiency improvement can directly translate into significant profit differences.

Additionally, we are also advancing a stable yield module to provide institutional users with more efficient capital utilization. By combining lending, perpetual contracts, and yield pools, Aster can help institutional users improve capital returns while maintaining controllable risk.

Of course, there are also some institutional users willing to take on higher risks who care about privacy. They do not want all strategies and positions to be publicly visible on-chain. A completely transparent system would expose strategies and make it difficult to maintain competitiveness.

Therefore, we are designing a "layered transparency mechanism" that retains on-chain verifiability while protecting strategy privacy. Institutional users can deploy strategies more securely without worrying about being "copied." We hope this can help attract more institutional funds and provide a new option for their research departments.

Another topic you mentioned, the market maker program, is something that users who have been following us for a while will notice. Since the CGBR, we have seen a significant improvement in liquidity for major trading pairs, such as BTC, ETH, SOL, and BNB, which have very good depth.

The design of the market maker program itself is to incentivize LPs to fill the depth of weaker markets. Currently, we are focusing on some smaller currency pairs—such as long-tail assets or niche tokens. Therefore, we are adjusting the existing incentive mechanisms and planning to offer higher rebate rewards to market makers of these smaller tokens to enhance the depth and transaction quality of these categories.

I believe that in the long run, this will become one of our platform's important competitive advantages: the decentralized architecture allows us to list new tokens faster and expand trading categories more flexibly, while good liquidity is key to user experience.

From a broader perspective, we hope Aster can be a more open ecosystem that can list a more diverse range of assets "without permission." Once these assets are listed, the next focus will be on liquidity.

Therefore, we are also advancing new market maker incentive programs to encourage market participants to provide depth on these assets, allowing users to enjoy a smooth and low-slippage experience regardless of which asset they trade.

If any market-making institutions or quantitative teams are interested in participating in these new programs, we welcome them to contact us—we look forward to collaborating with more professional liquidity providers to create a more vibrant trading market together.

Ember: Besides liquidity, the overall expansion of the ecosystem is also accelerating. Next, we want to discuss Aster's plans for supporting assets, chain ecosystem coverage, and DeFi integration. Especially when the Aster main chain officially launches, how will our own stablecoin USDF integrate into the ecosystem?

Leonard: This can be divided into several parts: chain ecosystem coverage, DeFi integration, and the stablecoin USDF.

First, in terms of chain support, we have basically covered most mainstream EVM ecosystems, which can meet the needs of the vast majority of trading users. For non-EVM chain support, the integration cost is quite high, so we will be more cautious and not expand blindly.

Next, we prefer to collaborate with cross-chain bridge projects to ensure a smoother cross-chain experience for assets between different chains. In simple terms, we will solve the issues of long-tail chain assets through bridging rather than adapting each one natively.

In the short term, in terms of DeFi integration, we will focus on collaborating with some asset issuance and launch platforms, such as fair launch platforms or crowdfunding issuance platforms (like IDO/IEO platforms), to ensure that Aster can get involved in the initial stages of asset formation as early as possible. This helps users discover those "new assets" that have potential and grow quickly, rather than just mature mainstream coins.

This is actually part of our strategy for spot listings and DeFi integration. In terms of lending, we also plan to expand the range of trading collateral assets through partnerships, strengthening the narrative of "Trade & Earn." Our stablecoin USDF will play a key role in this system. Most users still use stablecoins as collateral for trading, and our self-developed USDF can better control risks and reduce reliance on external stablecoins. Especially in the recent context where the stablecoin market frequently exposes counterparty risks, having our own stablecoin is a strategic choice for us.

The existence of USDF allows us to be more autonomous in internal risk management and reduces the leverage and exposure issues caused by reliance on third-party platforms. Compared to external stablecoins like USDT and USDC, we have complete control over the asset composition and risk exposure of USDF, which is crucial for platform security.

Therefore, USDF will be a very core part of the Aster ecosystem. It aligns with our narrative of "Trade & Earn" and strengthens the sustainability of our overall ecosystem.

Ember: For the final question, regarding the Rocket Launch project, can you talk about how Aster will screen and incentivize early projects? At the same time, how will the team expand into English-speaking markets, Korea, Southeast Asia, and other global regions while maintaining Aster's "product-first" cultural gene?

Leonard: I think this is not limited to the Rocket Launch project. Overall, Aster has different strategies for launching projects in spot and contract trading.

For contracts, the focus is on providing users with a tool that allows them to trade freely based on their views. Users can go long or short; the key is whether the market has sufficient liquidity and whether the asset has enough trading demand.

Therefore, we will quickly assess which tokens have more trading potential based on user feedback and prioritize the launch of those high-interest assets.

For spot listings, we need to be more cautious. Purchasing spot assets means truly holding a part of the project's equity, which requires us to conduct fundamental due diligence. We typically prioritize projects that have high product quality, strong team execution, and are trustworthy.

However, within the Aster ecosystem, our greatest value actually lies in providing liquidity support for projects. We are most interested in projects that have completed product and community building but still need liquidity to boost their growth. Through Aster's liquidity support, they can enter the next development phase, such as obtaining opportunities for CEX listings or gaining more trading exposure.

At the same time, when the project token price rises, this can also benefit users who trade or participate in airdrops on Aster. This "win-win situation" is precisely the intention behind our Rocket Launch program. If a project meets the criteria and is in the TGE phase, we will include it in the Rocket Launch program, providing customized liquidity and marketing support. If the project has already passed the TGE phase, we will also design independent trading activities or liquidity plans to help them expand their influence. Regardless of the type, our goal is to help high-potential projects gain the momentum for the next stage of growth.

In terms of global expansion, Aster has previously focused more on the Asian market. Next, we will further expand into English-speaking markets, Korea, and Southeast Asia, hoping to replicate our successful model in Asia on a global scale. This means we will be looking for partners who are deeply rooted in their local markets, understand the culture, and align with Aster's vision.

We hope they will work with us to build the next generation of decentralized trading experiences. In Korea, we have already seen good results; for example, through localized partnerships, we incubated a local brand project that brought in extremely high trading volume. This model has proven that the combination of "local teams + Aster infrastructure" is very effective, and we plan to replicate this success in regions like Europe and North America.

In the future, we will focus on enhancing the presence of the English community. For example, we will collaborate with BNB Chain, Endowment, and others to host joint AMAs and offline trading competitions; we are also trying more social media activities in Europe and North America, such as community events on Facebook.

Additionally, we are actively recruiting localized talent. Not only do we require them to speak the local language, but it is also crucial that they understand the local users' culture and trading habits. Only in this way can we truly build a decentralized trading network that is global yet deeply rooted in local markets.

Community Q&A

Ember: The first question: Regarding the multi-asset model, does the team plan to adjust the multi-asset model to a form similar to Inverse Altcoin-Margin Contracts?

Leonard: Currently, we do not plan to mimic that type of contract form. Our focus is to refine the current system to perfection—specifically, the core logic of "multi-asset generation."

We want to better serve the narrative of "Trade & Earn," making the tradable asset pool more scalable. On this main line, we will still primarily use the existing USDT margin contract model, and we will consider further expansion in the future, but at this stage, we will continue to focus on what we do best.

Ember: The second question: Can you confirm the launch time of the Aster L1 mainnet? Some community members mentioned that the testnet might go live next month, with the mainnet targeted for the first quarter of 2026. Can you please confirm this?

Leonard: Our goal is actually more aggressive than that. We hope to complete internal testing by the end of this year and be technically ready for external testing. If all goes well, then the L1 mainnet will launch between the end of this year and early next year.

Of course, if there is a slight delay, the first quarter of 2026 is still a reasonable window. The first quarter includes three months, and we will open the test network to the public for experience during this period, ensuring that all functions are stable before officially launching the mainnet.

Ember: The last question, which many community members are also asking: Can you explain Aster's buyback and burn mechanism in detail?

Leonard: I actually just saw many people asking about this. First, many are curious why we do not publicly execute buybacks on-chain.

In fact, we are indeed conducting open market buybacks, but the current execution is not yet displayed on-chain. This is also one of the reasons we are accelerating the launch of L1: once Aster L1 mainnet goes live, all buyback activities will be automatically recorded as on-chain transactions, allowing everyone to clearly see the details of each buyback and burn execution.

Currently, we will still use a portion of the platform's generated fees for buybacks. But I also want to emphasize—we will not make unrealistic promises of "100% buyback." Aster is still in its early stages, and we will continuously adjust the buyback ratio and cycle based on ecological development, revenue structure, and market conditions.

In the future, as the ecosystem stabilizes, the buyback mechanism will also tend toward a more long-term and stable state, gradually evolving into a continuous and transparent "buyback + burn" system.

Message

Ember: Before we conclude, Leonard, do you have any final words for the community?

Leonard: Of course. First, the community is always at the core of Aster. We have come this far because we continuously listen to user feedback. Many recent product updates and feature optimizations have directly stemmed from community suggestions.

In the future, we will hold similar AMAs more frequently to maintain communication with everyone and work together to create truly valuable products that you are willing to use.

Secondly, in terms of product roadmap, the upcoming focus will include: privacy feature modules; L1 mainnet release; token utility expansion; and further optimization of the trading experience.

Please stay tuned, actively participate in testing, and let us know your feelings, including what you like, dislike, and hope we can improve. We will listen carefully.

Finally, I would like to introduce our CTO, Oliver. He did not speak today due to technical reasons, but he will appear more frequently in the community in the future to communicate directly with everyone. If you are a developer or a tech enthusiast, feel free to join our Discord Builders channel to discuss technical ideas, infrastructure improvements, or any innovations related to the Aster ecosystem with Oliver.

We look forward to working with more builders to drive Aster forward.

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