Aster vs Hyperliquid: BEST Perp DEX in 2025 REVEALED

Market Overview - Hyperliquid dominated onchain derivatives trading for the past year, but Aster is emerging as a potential competitor [1] - The contrast between Hyperliquid and Aster is stark, with different approaches to funding, team structure, and marketing [9][10] Technology and Architecture - Hyperliquid built its own layer 1 blockchain for full vertical integration, processing up to 200,000 orders per second with sub-0.2 second finality [11][14] - Aster takes a horizontal integration approach, aggregating liquidity from multiple chains like BNB Chain, Ethereum, Solana, and Arbitrum [17] - Hyperliquid offers perpetual futures with up to 50x leverage, while Aster offers up to 101x leverage and stock perpetuals [15][20][21] Tokenomics - Hyperliquid's Hype airdrop in November 2024 distributed $310 million coins, worth $1.2 billion at launch, to 94,000 users [24][25] - Aster allocated 53%, around 4.3 billion tokens, of its 8 billion maximum supply to airdrops [32] - Hyperliquid uses 93-97% of protocol fees to buy back and burn Hype, creating a deflationary flywheel [27] Adoption and Growth - Hyperliquid has over $6.5 billion TVL and over $2.7 trillion in cumulative volume, generating over $1 billion in annualized revenue [39][40] - Aster has 2 million users total, with 330,000 joining in the first 24 hours after TGE, and TVL peaked at $2 billion [41] Risks and Challenges - Hyperliquid's core software is closed source and the network is run by a limited number of validators, raising centralization concerns [45] - Aster's dependence on CZ's hype and its multi-chain architecture pose risks, including potential vulnerabilities to cross-chain attacks [46][47]