As a rising star in the DEX space, Aster's TGE explosion is backed by our institution's efforts to build the Aster community in Japan from scratch, establishing a network of top KOLs and trading communities. As of now, we have achieved a monthly trading volume of approximately 6 billion USD, covering 24,863 Japanese trading users.
This article shares:
The Power of Localization: Aster's Exclusive Partner in Japan
Cold Start Dilemma: Breaking Through from 5 Million to 6 Billion
Differentiated Competition: The Growth Logic of DEX in Japan
Resource Barriers: KOL Matrix and Customized Incentives
Future Challenges: Aster's Risks and Development
The Power of Localization: Aster's Exclusive Partner in Japan
Sharing from Ki, Partner at DP Capital:
“We are honored to be Aster DEX's exclusive partner in Japan, driving its trading volume to surpass 3.5 billion USD in just a few months. This is only a milestone; our goals extend far beyond this. Our team has long been deeply involved in the Japanese blockchain community, focusing on liquidity, staking, and DEX market-related collaborations.”
Why Are We Betting on DEX?
Last year, many KOLs in the Japanese community achieved financial freedom through Hyperliquid. Early holders and contributors of Hype have now become Aster's first supporters in Japan. In fact, the Japanese market ranks 5th in Hyperliquid's global trading volume, and our community's focus is almost entirely on DEX. Looking at the top ten projects on DefiLlama, our team has collaborated with more than half of them.
Aster emerged against this backdrop. The project was initially recommended by friends in the DEX field. During our first communication, we felt the team's passion and determination to penetrate the Japanese market. Later, at the Dubai 2049 conference, I spoke directly with Aster's CEO, and his presentation on the BNB ecosystem and project details confirmed several things for me: the team has a solid background, the product has potential, and the CEO is extremely serious. Based on my intuition and judgment, I believe Aster is very likely to become the next dark horse in the DEX space.
From May to September, we witnessed and participated in Aster's explosive growth in Japan from zero. This article is a complete review and sharing of my four-month localization expansion and DEX market strategy.
Cold Start Dilemma: Breaking Through from 5 Million to 6 Billion
Although Aster has gained popularity in Chinese-speaking regions, the Japanese market remains almost blank. Japanese users are largely unaware of Aster in the DEX field. We invited well-known Japanese trading KOLs to experience and evaluate Aster's products, but most declined in the early stages.
Three Major Challenges for Entering the Japanese DEX Market:
Language and Cultural Barriers—Japanese users are extremely sensitive to details and expressions.
Difficulty in Building Trust—In finance and trading, brand endorsement and community reputation are crucial.
CEX Dominance, Vertical DEX Users—Similar to how contract users are precisely segmented among CEX trading users in Japan, competition for limited DEX contract users is very fierce.
We Started Solving from the Basics:
Localization Language Upgrade We revised the Japanese version of the platform, especially the Trade (Simple), Trade (Pro), and Earn sections. Unlike most "half-baked" translations on the market, we invited blockchain professional editors and experienced traders to optimize it. For large Japanese traders, a single translation error or inappropriate term could undermine trust. The upgraded Aster interface finally met the professional standards recognized by Japanese users.**
Key SEO and Content Positioning We covered core Google search terms to ensure that when Japanese users first search for Aster, they receive positive and accurate information. We extracted all search term data from Hyperliquid and combined it with the top ten keywords in Japan to customize three key monthly keywords for Aster:**
Asterdex エアドロ（Airdrop）
Asterdex 使い方（How to Use）
Asterdex 仮想通貨（Decentralized Exchange）
Around these keywords, we continuously published Japanese content, while also creating registration tutorials, operation guides, and serialized articles on airdrop claims, gradually shaping the user cognitive path.
User Experience Optimization and Community Outreach With each product update, we shared it with the trading KOL community immediately. By optimizing and spreading simultaneously, we allowed KOLs and early users to feel Aster's growth and market maturity.**
With the upgraded Japanese version, Aster's monthly trading volume surged from the initial 5 million USD to 20 million USD, laying the foundation for subsequent scalable growth. It can be said that Aster's first step in Japan was not "aggressive marketing," but rather building trust through precise localization + SEO positioning + user experience, allowing Japanese users to use it more smoothly and securely.
Differentiated Competition: The Growth Logic of DEX in Japan
The competition in the Japanese DEX market is fierce. Aster must find a breakthrough under limited resources. In the first two months of entering Japan, the monthly trading volume was only about 20 million USD, far below expectations.
As an agency, we provided support and endorsement for the Japanese market: offering Aster a list of top trading KOLs and closed trading communities, each channel backed by real trading volume user groups. The team then developed a differentiated market strategy:
Not relying on large-scale advertising
Targeted incentive mechanisms focusing on actual trading volume KOLs
Precise channels driving high-value users, ensuring long-term stickiness
This approach allowed Aster to establish a unique position in Japan: not relying on burning money for short-term noise, but gradually growing through high-quality users + competition-driven trading. We reached a consensus with the Aster team to use incentive strategies to open up trading collaborations with top players in Japan.
In contrast to some competing DEXs' "flexing muscles" strategy—massive subsidies, trading competitions, and advertising spending. The market can acquire customers quickly if it is willing to spend money, but once Aster's targeted incentives break through, the efficiency and sustainability will be very strong.
Resource Barriers: KOL Matrix and Customized Incentives
We provided a rare list of the Japanese community: about 20 top trading KOL community matrices, each with thousands of active users and real trading connections.
Based on this, we designed a tiered trading incentive model:
Setting different goals based on large, medium, and small communities
Not evaluating by fame, but using real trading volume as the sole standard
Medium and small channel trading targets reaching 30 million USD monthly, while top channels targeting over 1 billion USD monthly trading volume.
During the execution process, the Aster team and CEO visited Japan multiple times to communicate face-to-face with KOLs, greatly enhancing market trust. During CZ's visit to the Tokyo WebX conference in August, he mentioned the future of DEX. This formed an important trust endorsement for our push, while we fully amplified Aster's differentiated advantages: multi-chain support, perpetual contracts, hidden orders, privacy protection, dual modes for novice and professional users, and capital and institutional endorsements.
The involvement of key KOLs caused market data to jump rapidly: daily trading volume exceeding 10 million USD, with over 500 new users added daily. The community concentrated on mobilizing 20 KOL channels, continuously producing content: Twitter promotions, dedicated Japanese AMAs, YouTube reviews, community airdrop content, and combining CMC and DefiLlama data endorsements with industry influencers for secondary dissemination.
At the same time, we organized standardized Japanese tutorials and official market policies, combined with high trading volume KOL cases, to spread in new channels, improving dissemination efficiency and user education levels.
This month, Aster's growth curve in Japan significantly exceeded expectations, achieving a trading volume of 6 billion USD. We look forward to the next larger trading volume target: 50 billion USD monthly.
Future Challenges: Aster's Risks and Development
Aster's rapid rise is inseparable from solid support and unique product strength. The investments from Binance and YZi Labs provide strong confidence for opening the Japanese market.
From the market landscape, Hyperliquid still holds a leading position in Japan, maintaining liquidity through technical advantages and professional communities. Our Japanese community user structure is still primarily based on Hyperliquid, with Aster following closely, but there is significant room for growth.
As a "new king," Aster attracts a large number of novice users through product innovation + airdrop marketing + skyrocketing token prices. Core competitive advantages include:
Multi-chain support and innovative features
User-friendly for novices while catering to professional trading
Strong capital and institutional endorsements
Whether it can maintain the top position in the future depends on:
Continuous product iteration—optimizing trading experience and maintaining technological leadership
Token price and market performance—sustaining user attraction
Long-term incentive mechanisms—cultivating user stickiness and loyalty through airdrops and community incentives
As the exclusive partner in Japan, we will continue to fully support Aster, conveying the latest market demands and feedback to the team, driving product and service optimization. We also look forward to Aster exploring a broader blue ocean market alongside more excellent projects in the new DEX season of 2025.
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