Aster DEX Launches Privacy Layer-1 as Trading Volume Falls 76% From Peak

BeInCrypto2026/03/18 05:57

By:BeInCrypto

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Decentralized perpetual exchange Aster has officially launched the mainnet of its purpose-built layer-1 blockchain for derivatives trading. The rollout follows a phased structure. Chain Genesis is now live, with a partnership reveal scheduled for March 18. Furthermore, public staking for ASTER token holders will arrive later this week, and broader ecosystem expansion will follow. What Is Aster Chain? According to the team, Aster Chain supports 100,000 transactions per second, 50-millisecond block times, and charges no gas fees. Cross-chain deposits are supported from BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Solana. The chain also has default privacy. Every transaction routes through a one-time stealth address, and orders are encrypted using zero-knowledge proofs. Account Privacy is on by default. Your transactions settle on-chain, but no one sees them. Still verifiable, just not by everyone, the announcement read. Want to prove what you did? Generate a Viewer Pass. It decrypts your on-chain records for anyone you share it with. No one else can access them. Keep it SAFU. Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens ASTER Token Rallies Against a Volume Slide The launch received public support from Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the co-founder of Binance, whose family office, YZi Labs, backs Aster. This is a big one. Trade with privacy. Aster Chain. https://t.co/pkEQdLBK0J CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) March 17, 2026 The announcement also sent the token higher. ASTER reached an intraday high of $0.79 yesterday, its highest price since mid-January 2026. At press time, the altcoin had pulled back to $0.74, up 0.062% on the day. ASTER Token Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto Markets The new launch comes amid a decline in platform activity. DefiLlama showed that weekly perpetual trading volume peaked at $76.6 billion in October 2025 and has since dropped to roughly $18 billion, a contraction of over 76%. Total value locked (TVL) has also dipped from over $2 billion to around $949 million at press time. Aster Perp Volume and TVL. Source: DefiLlama Aster remains one of the top perpetual decentralized exchanges by volume, but the drop reflects mounting competitive pressure from Hyperliquid as the broader on-chain derivatives market has consolidated since its breakout period in 2025. Read the article at BeInCrypto

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NET % VOL STOCK (Symbol) LAST CHG CHG 100s Direxion Semicon Br 3x SOXS 33.79 3.14 10.24 113,576,607 ProShares Bitcoin ETF BITO 10.93 -0.21 -1.89 112,012,221 Direxion Semicon Bl 3x SOXL 142.52 -16.39 -10.31 100,351,229 ProShares Sh Russell2001 RWM 14.43 0.01 0.07 77,482,048 GrShr 2x Sh NVDA Daily NVD 3.55 0.20 5.97 73,813,301 ProShares UltraPro QQQ TQQQ 80.23 -3.39 -4.05 65,485,124 ProSh UltraPro Shrt QQQ SQQQ 33.37 1.30 4.05 60,470,210 iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF IBIT 46.26 -0.95 -2.01 56,191,237 Direxion PLTR Bear 1X PLTD 4.50 -0.11 -2.39 52,552,250 SS Energy Sel SPDR XLE 65.24 1.88 2.97 50,492,628 (END) Dow Jones Newswires October 08, 2026 17:38 ET (21:38 GMT)

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