# Hyperliquid vs Aster, Two Venues That Run Their Own Chain

Rev. 24 September 2026. Kept by Chain Sheet editors.

## Abstract

Hyperliquid vs Aster sets the two largest on-chain venues by open interest against each other. Aster scores
9.2 of 12 against 8.3, on 578 contracts,
seven audit reports and a 0.040% taker rate; Hyperliquid holds
$8.7 billion of open interest against $1.4 billion on 22 September 2026. Both chains
are the venues' own.

Weights: Settlement and custody 30 · Measured book depth 25 · Round-trip taker cost 18 · Audit and incident record 15 · Markets and asset classes 12, fixed 22 September 2026, scored out of 12. Method: https://echoblock.org/how-we-score

## Hyperliquid vs Aster, property by property

Each venue matches and settles inside a chain it built, so what separates them is who may
validate that chain, what a round trip costs and where the leverage bracket ends.

| Property | Hyperliquid | Aster |
|---|---|---|
| Score of 12 | 8.3 | 9.2 |
| Where the book sits | Inside its own layer 1, as chain state | Inside Aster Chain, its own proof-of-stake-authority network |
| Who validates the chain | A validator set that has convened and voted in public | The operator; phase one supports no external validators |
| Chain software | Not described in the documents we read | Core contracts and node infrastructure not open-sourced |
| Maker / taker at the entry tier | 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker | 0% maker / 0.040% taker |
| Round trip on $10,000 | $9.00 | $8.00 |
| Perpetual markets | 324 | 578 |
| Asset classes beyond crypto | Shares, currencies, commodities, indices | Shares, currencies, commodities, indices, pre-listing contracts |
| Maximum leverage on Bitcoin | 40x to $150 million | 200x to 400 USDT |
| Open interest reported on 22 September 2026 | $8.7 billion | $1.4 billion |
| Volume over 24 hours on 22 September 2026 | $13.4 billion | $3.2 billion |
| Median BTC spread in our readings | 0.12 bps | 0.01 bps |
| Resting depth within 10 basis points | $8.7 million | $14.4 million |
| Published audit reports | Two, both on the deposit bridge | Seven, on the vault and the earn contracts |
| Public bug bounty | Under 1,000,000 USDC for a critical report | Up to $200,000 through Immunefi |
| Exit without the operator | Not described in the documentation we read | Not described; the bridge is signed by the operator's validators |
| Loss of user funds in 24 months | Two vault losses, about $4.9 million and about $4 million | Mispriced liquidations in September 2025, reimbursed in USDT |

Every property a venue states about itself was read on 18 September 2026 in its documentation,
its interface and its terms. Open interest and the day's turnover are returns the venues make
about themselves, carried by CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026. The book rows are the house's own.
Both columns go through the single formula this site fixed on 22 September 2026.

## Order-book readings

Both BTC books were polled on the same interval, over the same window, from the same machine.

| Venue | Median spread | Resting within 10 bps | Impact, $10,000 | Impact, $100,000 | Impact, $1 million | Round trip on $10,000 | Snapshots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperliquid | 0.12 bps | $8.7 million | 0.06 bps | 0.06 bps | 0.65 bps | $9.00 | 125 |
| Aster | 0.01 bps | $14.4 million | 0.06 bps | 0.35 bps | 0.98 bps | $8.00 | 124 |

## What separates them

1. Open interest sits with Hyperliquid: $8.7 billion against $1.4 billion on 22 September 2026, with 24-hour volume of $13.4 billion against $3.2 billion.
2. The lower rate sits with Aster: 0% maker / 0.040% taker against 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker, so a $10,000 round trip costs $8.00 rather than $9.00.
3. So does breadth: 578 perpetual contracts against 324, and five asset classes beyond crypto against four.
4. Depth goes the same way: $14.4 million against $8.7 million resting within 10 basis points, though a $1 million order moved 0.65 bps on one book and 0.98 bps on the other.

## 01 · [Hyperliquid](https://hyperliquid.xyz) — size, on a chain outsiders can validate

Score 8.3 of 12.

Everything here happens as chain state: the order, the cancel, the fill and the liquidation
are each a transaction on the venue's own layer 1, with one-block finality inherited from its
consensus [1]. Hyperliquid reported $8.7 billion of open interest and
$13.4 billion of 24-hour volume to CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026 [3], more than
any other venue on this site. Taking costs
0.045% across 324 perpetuals, of which 146 were
deployed by outside builders rather than by the venue.

- For: Every order, cancel, trade and liquidation is chain state, with one-block finality; Six times the other column's open interest on 22 September 2026.
- Against: Its own liquidity vault carried the losses when the market turned: about $4.9 million in November 2025 and about $4 million in March 2025; Markets deployed by outsiders reach the interface without review by the operator.
- Not for: anyone who needs every listed market vetted before it appears.

## 02 · [Aster](https://www.asterdex.com) — breadth and price, if the chain itself is not the point

Score 9.2 of 12.

Aster's book lives inside a chain Aster built: Aster Chain, a proof-of-stake-authority network
switched on 16 March 2026, where an order travels encrypted and is verified by proof instead of
being shown to the room [2]. On price it takes the column: 0% maker / 0.040% taker at the first volume tier, the
maker side zero at every tier since 2 February 2026, so a $10,000 round trip costs
$8.00 against $9.00. It lists 578
perpetual contracts, pre-listing names included, and its median BTC spread,
0.01 bps, was the tightest we read. Every contract on this sheet is carried on margin, and margin is what a move the wrong way takes first.

- For: 578 perpetual contracts against 324, across six asset classes; No maker fee at any volume tier since 2 February 2026, and 0.040% to take.
- Against: Phase one of Aster Chain runs without external validators, and the core chain contracts are not published; The 200x bracket on Bitcoin ends at 400 USDT of notional: 150x holds to $300,000 and 100x to $800,000.
- Not for: anyone who needs to read the code that matches their order.

## Who is allowed to check the chain each book runs on

Hyperliquid's book is chain state. An order, a cancel, a fill and a liquidation are each a
transaction on its layer 1, carrying the one-block finality of its consensus [1], and its
validator set is visible when it acts: in March 2025 it convened and voted to delist a
perpetual after suspicious trading, as Hyperliquid stated on 26 March 2025. Aster Chain, live
since 16 March 2026, keeps
orders encrypted and proves them rather than showing them; by Aster's own account the chain's
contracts and the node software behind them have not been published, and the first phase admits
no validators from outside [2]. Deposits cross into it once three of four validator nodes
sign, withdrawals on two of three, and all four are the operator's [2]. Because both write
every trade to a chain, the settlement and custody criterion scores them alike, and Aster's
lead comes from its audit count, its rate and its market list instead. Who may read the
software doing the matching is the part the formula does not price, and it is the part this
page leaves with the reader.

## Where each leverage bracket ends

A ladder is two numbers, and the headline is the one that holds for the smallest position.
Aster documents 200x to 400 USDT of notional on Bitcoin, then 150x to
$300,000 and 100x to $800,000 [2]. Hyperliquid documents
40x to $150 million and 20x above it [1]. The larger headline multiple
expires at a position a trader can reach with pocket money; the smaller one survives one most
readers will never take. Neither number says how far the price must move to take the margin:
at 40x that distance is under three per cent.

## What a bad day cost at each venue, and who paid for it

Hyperliquid has two on record. In March 2025 a single Ether position was liquidated after its
owner withdrew unrealised profit, and the venue stated that its own liquidity vault lost about
$4 million over the following day [5]; in November 2025 CoinDesk, citing on-chain analysts,
put a second vault loss at about $4.9 million after alleged manipulation of a memecoin
contract, and no post-mortem followed [6]. Aster has one. On 25 September 2025 the mark price
of its XPL perpetual decoupled from other venues and forced liquidations; the venue reimbursed
those accounts in USDT and refunded trading and liquidation fees in a second round [7]. The
pattern matters more than the amounts: one loss stayed with the depositors in the venue's own
vault, the other the operator chose to repay.

## Quoted from the sources

> "HyperCore includes fully onchain perpetual futures and spot order books. Every order, cancel, trade, and liquidation happens transparently with one-block finality inherited from HyperBFT." — Hyperliquid documentation, about the venue, 18 September 2026. https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/about-hyperliquid
> "Core chain contracts and RPC infrastructure will not be open-sourced at the moment" — Aster documentation, Aster Chain overview, 18 September 2026. https://docs.asterdex.com/aster-chain/overview
> "Compensation for the XPL perp incident has now been fully distributed. All affected users have received reimbursement directly in USDT to their accounts." — Aster, on the September 2025 mispricing, 18 September 2026. https://x.com/Aster_DEX/status/1971382643909591467
> "An off-chain order book (Matcher) system manages buy and sell orders outside the blockchain." — EVEDEX documentation, on a third arrangement neither venue here uses, 18 September 2026.
## How this sheet was compiled

The documentary columns — rate card, contract list, leverage ladder, custody mechanics, audit
reports — come off each venue's own pages as they stood on 18 September 2026. The book column
is ours, read from 20 September 2026 into 21 September 2026, a reading every ten minutes; no account opened, no order sent. The weights behind
all 2 marks were fixed on 22 September 2026: [how we rate](/how-we-score).

A document is not behaviour: settlement, forced withdrawals and audit history are entered as the
venue states them. The cost column is the published entry-tier rate, crediting no volume tier,
staking discount or referral deal. One market stands behind depth — the BTC perpetual.

## Sources

1. Hyperliquid documentation: chain design, fees, margin tiers, bounty. https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/trading/fees (18 September 2026)
2. Aster documentation: Aster Chain, fee tiers, Bitcoin brackets. https://docs.asterdex.com/trading/perpetuals/fees-and-specs/fees (18 September 2026)
3. CoinMarketCap, decentralized derivatives ranking; open interest and volume as each venue reports them. https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/dex/?type=derivatives (22 September 2026)
4. Chain Sheet measurement log, BTC perpetual order books read on a fixed interval. (18 September 2026)
5. Hyperliquid, on the March 2025 liquidation and the vault loss that followed. https://x.com/HyperliquidX/status/1899768864705237211 (18 September 2026)
6. CoinDesk, on the November 2025 vault loss, citing on-chain analysts. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/11/13/peak-degen-warfare-alleged-popcat-manipulation-hits-hyperliquid-with-usd4-9m-loss (18 September 2026)
7. Aster, on the September 2025 XPL mispricing and the reimbursement. https://x.com/Aster_DEX/status/1971331830252294282 (18 September 2026)

## FAQ

### Is Aster bigger than Hyperliquid?

Not by money at risk. On 22 September 2026 Hyperliquid reported $8.7 billion of open
interest against $1.4 billion at Aster, and $13.4 billion of 24-hour volume
against $3.2 billion. Aster is larger by the number of contracts it lists and by what
we measured resting in its BTC book, $14.4 million against $8.7 million.

### Which is cheaper, Hyperliquid or Aster?

Aster, at the entry tier: 0% maker / 0.040% taker against 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker, so a $10,000
round trip costs $8.00 rather than $9.00. The cheaper
venue also held the deeper book in our readings, $14.4 million against
$8.7 million, so that basis point is not swallowed again at the fill.

### Is Aster a real DEX?

It settles trades on a chain it runs itself, which is on-chain settlement without an outside
validator set in its first phase. Whether that counts depends on what you want from the word:
the record it writes is public, and the software writing that record is not.

### What leverage does Hyperliquid allow on Bitcoin?

The documented ladder reads 40x to $150 million of notional, dropping to
20x above that. Aster documents 200x to 400 USDT, then 150x to $300,000 and
100x to $800,000, so its larger headline multiple expires where a position is still small.

### Does Hyperliquid have a bug bounty?

Yes. Its own programme pays under 1,000,000 USDC for a critical report, in USDC on its own
chain, and asks the researcher to pass identity checks before it pays. Aster runs an Immunefi
programme instead, paying up to $200,000 with a $50,000 floor on a critical finding.

### Which has more trading pairs?

Aster, with 578 perpetual contracts against 324 at
Hyperliquid once builder-deployed markets are counted. Both lists reach past crypto into
shares, currencies, commodities and indices, and Aster adds pre-listing contracts. Neither
delivers the underlying asset at any point in a trade, whatever the market is called.

### Are Hyperliquid vaults safe?

Its liquidity vault took about $4 million of losses in March 2025 by the venue's own account
and about $4.9 million in November 2025 by CoinDesk's, both through market events rather than
a contract flaw. Depositing into that vault is a decision separate from trading on the book
above it.

### which one has better liquidity for large orders

They were close in our readings: $8.7 million against $14.4 million
resting within 10 basis points. A $1 million market order was the separator, moving the price
0.65 bps on one book and 0.98 bps on the other.
Both are deeper than most venues on this site.

### can i use hyperliquid or aster without a wallet

Aster accepts an email address and a password beside a wallet signature; Hyperliquid accepts a
wallet signature or an email code. In each case a wallet is created behind the interface, so
the collateral still sits in contracts rather than in an account you can telephone about.

### what happened to aster's 1001x leverage

It was shut down. Aster announced that 1001x trading would be discontinued on 21 August 2026,
with remaining positions closed and open orders cancelled. Its Shield Mode still quotes up to
1001x on Bitcoin, capped at $8,000,000 of net notional and $80,000 of profit per position, at
a flat 0.03% fee.

### why did defillama stop showing aster's volume

CoinDesk reported on 6 October 2025 that DefiLlama had removed Aster's perpetual volume after
the figures tracked Binance's almost one for one, saying it could not verify whether that
volume was wash traded. Nothing on this sheet is scored on reported volume: the depth figures
are ours.

## Corrections

Chain Sheet editors, 24 September 2026. Corrections: sheet@echoblock.org.

Publication of this sheet is bought.