Aster Surges 33,500% in Open Interest, Tops Hyperliquid in Daily Volumes

Aster, a decentralized perpetuals exchange on BNB Chain, saw open interest surge nearly 33,500% in less than a week, challenging that of its top rival, Hyperliquid.

On Wednesday, CoinGlass data showed that Aster’s open interest jumped from $3.72 million on Friday to $1.25 billion at the time of writing. The spike in active contracts signaled that traders were piling into the platform, challenging its biggest competitor, Hyperliquid. 

Open interest refers to the total number of outstanding contracts that haven’t been settled. It’s used as a key metric to gauge liquidity and market conviction toward a project. Aster’s open interest surge showed that the traders are willing to deploy capital on the platform. 

In addition to open interest, Aster’s total value locked (TVL), another key indicator in decentralized finance (DeFi), also increased. On Wednesday, DefiLlama data showed that Aster’s TVL was at $1.85 billion, a 196% increase from Friday’s $625 million. 

Aster passes Hyperliquid in 24-hour volume 

DefiLlama data also showed that Aster topped daily perpetual trading volumes on Wednesday, with nearly $24.7 billion in the last 24 hours. 

This put Aster’s 24-hour performance above its strongest competitor, Hyperliquid, which only recorded about $10 billion on Wednesday. Players like edgeX and Lighter followed closely, with daily volumes of $8.25 billion and $6.18 billion, respectively. 

While Aster surpassed Hyperliquid’s daily volume performance, the decentralized exchange (DEX) still commands deeper liquidity over longer periods. 

Hyperliquid remains on top of the charts when it comes to seven-day and 30-day perpetual volumes. In the past week, Hyperliquid recorded $66 billion and had nearly $300 billion in the last 30 days. 

Related: Machi Big Brother exits $25M HYPE bet at $4M loss as rivals eat Hyperliquid market share

CoinMarketCap and BNB Chain support push Aster to the top

On Friday, a BNB Chain spokesperson told Cointelegraph that Aster had received its support and that of YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs). This included mentorship, ecosystem exposure and access to technical and marketing resources. 

Crypto data platform CoinMarketCap also boosted Aster through its CMC Launch program, a launchpad that features new projects. 

CMC Launch lead Jin Choo told Cointelegraph that the campaign to support Aster had generated significant exposure.

This included 400 million homepage banner impressions, over 3 million tweet impressions and a combined reach of over 5 million through newsletters, app notifications and media coverage. 

“The campaign also recorded over 1.5 million views across live events, 1.5 million landing page clicks and more than 500,000 clicks to Aster’s project page,” Choo added. 

Binance acquired CoinMarketCap in April 2020 for an undisclosed amount. However, when asked if YZi Labs or Binance had a hand in Aster being chosen for CMC Launch, Choo said no.

He told Cointelegraph that the project was chosen solely based on its merits, in line with CMC Launch’s qualification criteria, which include innovation, market potential, and community traction.

“Binance and CoinMarketCap are separate entities with independent operations,” Choo told Cointelegraph. “Binance has no control or influence over the way CoinMarketCap is managed and operated, including how we conduct project promotions.”