Recently, Aster has started a new chapter with its anniversary, launching key steps in building institutional-level privacy DeFi infrastructure. On March 17, the Aster Chain mainnet officially went live, committed to providing traders with fair ordering and optional privacy trading experiences. Following this, on March 20, the native staking feature of Aster Chain was launched, deeply binding network security and ecological growth through a dual reward mechanism.

From record-breaking trading volumes in the second half of 2025, to successfully completing brand upgrades and TGE, and now with the launch of the L1 mainnet, Aster is rapidly evolving from an innovative Perp DEX to a more complete infrastructure layer.

However, in the current context of L1 being overly saturated, market sentiment being lukewarm, macro events changing dramatically, and attention being severely dispersed, is now the best time to launch L1? What are Aster Chain's differentiated advantages? What are the upcoming roadmap plans?

To answer these questions, Odaily Planet Daily specifically interviewed Aster CEO Leonard, delving into key decisions made over the past year, insights into industry challenges, and the long-term vision of building "trusted infrastructure."

I found that the core logic is: "First have users and revenue, then launch the mainnet," rather than "cold start." This means every step Aster takes is based on real demands and market validation. At the same time, Aster Chain's unique value proposition of "optional privacy" will be the source of its competitive moat.

There are many aspects of Aster's story that are worth savoring for Web3 entrepreneurs. The following will tell this story in the first person from Aster CEO Leonard. Enjoy~

What did Aster do right in the past year?

Starting in the second half of 2025, the platform's 24-hour trading volume continued to break records, from 1 billion dollars in June to 11 billion dollars in September, feeling the project's rapid progress. Also in September, during the Aster TGE, we reached a 24-hour trading volume of over 345 million dollars, saw 330,000 new wallet addresses, and achieved a TVL of over 1 billion dollars, solidifying Aster's position in the DEX market. When trading volume broke records, it made us realize that we entered the right track at the right time.

With the TGE, the brand successfully transitioned from APX to Aster.

At the time we launched the true L1 mainnet with "optional privacy" functionality, it was a unique product not offered anywhere else in the market, and it is a prerequisite for on-chain trading to achieve large-scale application.

How did we get through the darkest moments?

When we initially rebranded, the market was almost monopolized by Hyperliquid, and no one thought anyone could challenge their position. Long before our TGE, the public had believed for a long time that this was impossible. Before the Aster TGE, the estimated FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) was not high, but we ultimately achieved a valuation far exceeding expectations, which also triggered a reevaluation of Perp DEX projects in the market.

In fact, we once postponed the TGE plan because we believed there was still room for improvement before the official launch. However, we later decided to value "execution speed" over "pursuing perfection". In hindsight, this was the right decision.

The lesson learned is that in an emerging market like Perp DEX, there is no "standard script" for dealing with the trickiest issues. Most consensus advice only applies to normal conditions. There is no magic; just believe in what you do and work hard.

The core belief that led the team to "embrace hardship" is: DEX will ultimately engulf the entire trading world, and "optional privacy" is key to achieving this process.

What team growth experiences can be reused behind high-speed growth?

As the project scaled, we actively bid farewell to the early instinctive decision-making model and shifted to relying heavily on data. The current Aster organizational structure is more refined, with more systematic decision-making and clearer metrics for each team to achieve quantifiable and traceable growth.

Although the organization is growing, some foundational logic remains unchanged, which is the sense of ownership among all members, taking full responsibility for the final results; rejecting hesitation, prioritizing action; results-oriented, where the process must ultimately translate into tangible value for users and the protocol.

To maintain the execution power and judgement of the early team, we adopted three major strategies: extreme flatness, rejecting internal friction, minimizing management levels to reduce ineffective communication lines, ensuring transparency and symmetry of information; delegated decision-making, granting full authority: providing teams with clear KPIs and ownership, and giving decision-making power to those closest to the battlefield; first implement, then perfect, emphasizing "rapid delivery, small steps, quick runs", allowing the market to provide firsthand corrective feedback to complete iterative optimization in a real environment.

The most challenging era for the new L1? How does Aster Chain define itself?

First, regarding the differentiation in technology design, Aster Chain employs a ZK + Stealth Address architecture: Stealth Addresses provide automatic privacy for each transaction, and ZK proofs make every private transaction verifiable. (For those interested in the technical details of Aster Chain achieving on-chain fund transparency and transaction privacy balance, please refer toGitbook.)

For developers, we launched Aster Code, which is an ecosystem for fee-sharing, with the core benefit allowing developers to build their own trading interfaces and directly automate收益.

Additionally, Aster Code has improved developers' integration efficiency, providing a transparent and controlled authorization mechanism, supporting data monitoring and instant settlement.

The real challenge for L1: After the mainnet launch, how to retain developers and users?

The battle for L1 is a competition for liquidity.

Technical solutions are the basic requirement; users should not feel the differences between centralized and decentralized architectures when trading. The users of Aster Perp DEX are also the users of Aster Chain. We started with users, and even revenue, before launching the mainnet, which is the model of successful projects in this cycle, rather than launching the chain first and then looking for a business model.

In terms of ecological growth, I believe the option for privacy will drive institutions' substantial adoption of decentralized trading, which has historically been a barrier. Now that we have provided privacy functionality, institutions will at least begin to try shifting some trading flows on-chain. The rationale for this move is strong; they seek diversification, and many institutions already believe that the future of trading lies in DEX. They just need a viable solution. And now, that solution has emerged, which is Aster Chain.

What will the industry landscape look like in the future? What is Aster's moat?

Privacy and core trading experience are our core. In the competition for liquidity, the network effect means that funds will inevitably concentrate on top players. I believe a market structure dominated by the top three players is very likely to form in the future; for DEX, this concentration may be even higher.

Because for DEX, there are almost no geographical or market segment limitations, the differentiation in competition mainly comes from different design principles and philosophies. Just as Aster has always focused on privacy and is willing to make necessary trade-offs for this core value, it has instead become our moat, enabling us to survive in long-term competition.

When engaging with B-end partners, what points impress potential collaborators the most?

Aster Chain is actively promoting cooperation with Web2 and Web3 domains.

There is enormous potential for product collaboration between Web3 companies and us. For example, we are in discussions with other stablecoin projects, exploring cooperative models similar to the World Liberty Financial framework. Additionally, we are also focusing on prediction markets, as there is a high overlap between users of prediction markets and traders in perpetual contract decentralized exchanges (perp DEX), and the cross-selling opportunities are evident.

In terms of Web2, most discussions concentrate on financial companies. The most common interest revolves around: establishing markets or listing assets on Aster, as these collaborations represent the easiest achievable phased goals for them. Although large corporations, particularly regulated financial institutions, have long cycles for establishing partnerships, once confirmed, we will announce publicly.

What should we do at this moment, based on backward reasoning from future judgments?

After the mainnet launch, Aster's priorities for Q2 include:

• Attracting users with privacy needs, professional traders, and institutional traders;
• Increasing asset varieties and liquidity;
• Expanding the ecosystem through Aster Code and Aster Chain;
• Enhancing token utility and governance;
• Optimizing the trading interface (UI/UX)...

In the crypto market downturn, and with external AI being hot, what adjustments or responses does Aster have?

Aster cannot predict the market, but can only focus on building, surviving and continuously creating value during the winter, which is the only certain path to the next ATH.

As for the AI trend, Aster has provided relevant skill interfaces for AI Agents. Although not an AI expert, we can empower AI developers and Agents to build tools on Aster and give us feedback on how to optimize products, making Aster not only friendly to humans but also attractive to AI Agents.

In a few years, I hope the industry will evaluate Aster as: a trusted infrastructure for users that can carry funds and strategies long-term.

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