- Aster jumped more than 30% on Sunday.
- Pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said he purchased more than 2 million Aster tokens.
- Sunday’s rally was not the first to demonstrate how closely the protocol’s fortunes are tied to those of the crypto-billionaire.
Decentralized perpetual exchange Aster soared on Sunday after Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said he purchased more than $2 million in the protocol’s token.
The Aster token was trading at $0.91 on Sunday before Zhao, better known as CZ, said on social media that he had purchased just over two million tokens. Within an hour, Aster was trading above $1.20, an increase of more than 30%.
“I’m not a trader. I buy and hold,” Zhao wrote on X.
The newcomer is backed by YZi Labs, a family office led by Zhao. The Binance founder has already used his star power to promote his investment in Aster.
Perpetual exchanges are booming in 2025. Over the past few months, Aster has surpassed Hyperliquid in trading volume, processing more than $70 billion in transactions over the past seven days, according to self-reported data.
But this data has come under scrutiny. 0xngmi, the pseudonymous leader of DL News Sister company DefiLlama briefly delisted Aster’s perpetual volume, citing its failure to verify the protocol’s self-reported numbers.
“Aster is reporting very, very high perp volumes,” 0xngmi said. DL News at the time. “It’s a bit suspicious.”
Nonetheless, DefiLlama has re-listed Aster’s self-reported numbers as the data platform works on a new method of tabulating the exchange’s perpetual volume.
Sunday’s rally was the latest to demonstrate how closely the protocol’s fortunes are tied to those of the crypto billionaire.
Zhao was forced to resign as CEO of Binance after pleading guilty to violating US banking laws. After serving a four-month prison sentence in the United States, Zhao requested a presidential pardon, according to media reports.
That work paid off on October 23 when U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned Zhao.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said DL News that Zhao “has been pursued by the Biden administration in its war on cryptocurrency.”
With Zhao’s pardon, this war is “over,” Leavitt said.
Both Aster and Binance’s BNB tokens rallied when the news broke.
Aster jumped double digits, to $1.07, in the hours following news of Zhao’s pardon. BNB, the native cryptocurrency of Binance’s BNB chain, surged more than 5% to $1,123.
Aleks Gilbert is DeFi correspondent for DL News. Do you have any advice? Send him an email to aleks@dlnews.com.
