Aster (ASTER) faced heavy selling pressure on Saturday after DeFiLlama delisted its perpetual futures data, citing suspicious trading activity. The move triggered a wave of caution among traders, sending Aster’s price tumbling by over 16% intraday before finding temporary stability.
Aster Price Slides as Traders React to Delisting
At the time of writing, Aster trades around $1.92, down 6% in the past 24 hours after hitting an intraday low of $1.80. The token had reached a high of $2.09 earlier in the week but has since lost 21% from that peak.
Despite the decline, trading volume climbed 15.5% over the past day to $1.06 billion, signaling heightened market activity as investors reacted to the delisting. According to Coinglass, open interest dipped slightly by 0.02% to $1.45 billion, while derivatives volume rose 1.85% to $4.83 billion suggesting that while traders are active, they’re refraining from taking on new leveraged positions amid uncertainty.
DeFiLlama Flags Suspicious Trading Patterns
The sell-off followed an announcement from DeFiLlama co-founder 0xngmi, who revealed on X (formerly Twitter) that Aster’s trading volumes had started mirroring Binance’s data almost perfectly particularly on pairs like XRP/USDT and ETH/USDT.
Such a 1:1 correlation is considered highly improbable in decentralized markets, prompting concerns that Aster’s reported volumes may have been artificially inflated through wash trading or mirrored data feeds.
DeFiLlama stated that it was unable to verify granular order data, such as market maker or filler addresses, making it impossible to confirm whether trades were organic. As a result, the platform decided to remove Aster’s perpetual futures data from its analytics dashboard, though spot trading and TVL (Total Value Locked) data remain available.
Aster, a decentralized perpetual DEX built on BNB Chain and backed by YZi Labs, has not yet released an official statement addressing the delisting. The issue comes shortly after the protocol reported a surge in daily perp volume to $60 billion in late September, briefly surpassing Hyperliquid, another major decentralized derivatives platform.
Community Split Over DeFiLlama’s Move
The delisting sparked mixed reactions across the crypto community. Some users praised DeFiLlama for taking a stand to preserve data transparency and integrity, while others accused the analytics platform of bias or selective enforcement.
In response, 0xngmi denied any conflicts of interest, clarifying that neither he nor the DeFiLlama team held financial exposure to Aster or Hyperliquid.
Technical Analysis: Aster Faces Volatile Consolidation
On the technical front, Aster recently tested support at $1.75, aligning with the lower Bollinger Band, before rebounding slightly to the $1.89–$1.92 range. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) sits near 47.3, reflecting neutral momentum with neither overbought nor oversold conditions.
If buying strength returns, Aster could retest resistance between $2.01 and $2.05, but failure to hold above $1.75 may trigger a deeper correction toward $1.65, a crucial support zone from late September.
While Aster shows early signs of stabilization, market confidence remains shaky, and ongoing scrutiny over trading data may continue to weigh on sentiment in the short term.
