Aster’s $100bn perp volume was ‘suspicious’. But was it fake?

A version of this article appeared in our The Decentralised newsletter on October 7. Sign up here. Decentralised exchanges offering perpetuals trading are taking the crypto industry by storm. Hyperliquid has seen $2.8 trillion in perpetual trade volume since it launched about a year ago. More remarkable still, a competitor named Aster appeared to be closing the gap — in September, it overtook Hyperliquid in daily trading volume. Or did it? DefiLlama, a DL News sister company, delisted Aster’s perpetual ...