Interview: The Round Trip
Compilation & Editing: Yuliya, PANews
In today's increasingly competitive DEX market, liquidity and user experience have become the most scarce and valuable core elements globally. Following Aster's successful TGE several months ago and its subsequent explosive growth, this YZi Labs-backed DEX has also attracted greater attention from the outside world.
In the new series of Founder's Talk from "The Round Trip," jointly produced by PANews and Web3.com Ventures, hosts John Scianna and Cassidy Huang welcome Leonard, founder and CEO of Aster, for an in-depth discussion. They will explore the story behind Aster's success, strategies for handling explosive traffic and retaining users, and how to build a complete business blueprint for "trustless" asset management.
Unexpected Gains from the Human vs. Machine Trading Battle
PANews:Hello Leonard, we know that Aster recently concluded a highly anticipated "Human vs AI" trading competition. This competition seemed to be a significant challenge for both sides, and we would really like to hear your thoughts on it. Perhaps you could also share your insights in the context of your observations about the current market?
Leonard:I think this is a very interesting experiment. Many people are overly focused on the performance of human traders versus AI agents, but I believe that...Nowadays, it is difficult to define what a "purely human trader" is, as almost everyone uses some form of AI tools for research or decision-making assistance.Therefore, for both AI and humans, adaptability is far more important than profitability within a specific period.
However, we have made a very interesting observation: AI can actually enable more trustless asset management and copy trading. When we communicate with users, we find that people tend to subconsciously speculate about the underlying motivations of human traders. Human traders' behaviors can change when they are being observed or when their incentive structures change, but AI agents do not. As long as you give it instructions and resources, it will faithfully execute them. Therefore,Even if an AI agent's performance is comparable to, or even slightly worse than, that of human traders, users are more inclined to entrust their funds to the AI.Because the input to AI (i.e., its strategy logic) is explicit, this is crucial in a "trustless" infrastructure.
We believe that,The next breakthrough lies in creating a truly "permissionless and trustless" AI trading product. This is precisely the direction we plan to continue investing resources into and deeply explore in the coming quarter.
When CZ Comes Knocking: From Viral Traffic to a "Sweet Burden"
PANews:When it comes to attention, many people first became aware of Aster through CZ. Recently, he not only publicly disclosed that he holds over $2 million worth of Aster tokens, but he has also been very active in the community, even joking about being "stuck" in the investment. CZ's involvement is undoubtedly a major validation and endorsement for Aster. What's your take on this?
Leonard: CZ's attention and personal investment are definitely positive for us. Any project would be happy to receive attention at this level. Of course, this support also brings great expectations and pressure., the market and prices all reflect this.
But I would rather bear the pressure than be marginalized by the market. To accomplish something extraordinary, one must first endure extraordinary burdens. This "discomfort" keeps us alert and moving forward continuously. Of course, I also hope that in the future, there will be more respected industry figures like CZ who will cast their trust in us with "real money." This attention can bring popularity and users to the ecosystem.In the long run, this helps us better iterate on our products.
PANews:When CZ brought this sudden wave of attention and traffic, how did your team respond? I'm curious because often the product may not be fully ready to handle such a large scale of demand.
Leonard:This can be viewed from two aspects.
The first is "hard endurance."When traffic surges, the system reveals various issues under pressure. There are no shortcuts— you must work nonstop to scale up servers and mobilize all available experts to "put out the fire." Ultimately, this tests how strong your and your team's determination is to succeed, and whether you are willing to invest extraordinary resources, time, and effort.
Second, after getting through the initial crisis mode, you need to calm down and think about how to convert this traffic more efficiently.We acknowledge that we were indeed not fully prepared at the beginning, which led to a poor experience for some of our early users. Regaining a lost user who has been "hurt" is much harder than acquiring a new one, and we are currently facing this challenge. However, the positive side is that these stress tests and user feedback have compelled us to make significant improvements in UI/UX and system stability over the past three months.
Every entrepreneur dreams of the moment when their product is in high demand and can't meet supply. But for those who haven't experienced it yet, my advice is "be careful what you wish for," because it's truly a sweet burden.
Survival Rules in the Era of DEX "Involution": Return to Products and the Value Flywheel
PANews:Currently, the competition in the Perp DEX sector is becoming increasingly intense, with new projects and features emerging constantly. All are vying for users through means such as airdrop expectations. After the hype of the TGE has subsided, how do you maintain market interest and retain users in such an environment?
Leonard:This is indeed a major challenge in the current market, and every project in a hot industry must go through this process. We believe the ultimate answer still lies in the product itself.
For Web3 projects, a key factor is how "user-driven" your product is. Can you create an environment where users feel like they are part of the product? Can they participate in governance and contribute to decisions about the product roadmap? When the community feels they have a "stake" in the project, user retention and loyalty are fostered.
Ultimately, you need to establish a sustainable closed-loop system:
- Create a product that can truly generate value.
- Find a model that makes users willing to pay for this value.
- Effectively recirculate the captured value back to your token holders.
Once this flywheel gets spinning, the project becomes sustainable. What remains is to find one's differentiating advantages in fierce competition—either by offering something others don't have, or by providing an experience that significantly surpasses competitors for the same features.
From Privacy "Shield" to Focused "Application Chain"
PANews:I discovered an interesting feature on Aster DEX called "Shield Mode," which seems to be a new privacy transaction feature. Why have you positioned privacy as a core strategic direction? Are you aiming to fill a particular gap in the market?
Leonard:We have been laying out our narrative around privacy for some time. As early as June of this year, discussions within the industry about "clearance sniping" were very intense. Regardless of the actual truth behind these controversies, they have revealed a clear market demand:Traders want to protect the privacy of their transactions while maintaining self-custody and verifiability.There is currently no perfect solution on the market that can satisfy all these requirements.
Our team believes that in order to achieve mass adoption of cryptocurrency, we must address the needs of this segment of the market. Therefore, we have been continuously exploring and launching various features with "privacy options." "Shield Mode" is one such attempt. It not only provides privacy but also allows us to experiment with other new features, such as up to 1000x leverage, and these trades do not appear in the public order book, making it suitable for traders with special strategy requirements.We are also testing a "profit-sharing" model, under which we only charge fees when your trades are profitable.
Our goal is to provide users with more diverse options, whether it's different fee structures, leverage levels, or privacy options, allowing users with different preferences to find a trading method that suits them on DEXs.
PANews:Since we're talking about products, Aster Chain is also about to launch. How do you view Aster Chain as a standalone product? Does this mean that Aster will evolve from a single DEX application into a broader ecosystem?
Leonard:First, I would like to make one thing clear:Aster's core product remains trading. We will not devote excessive effort to building a large ecosystem around Aster Chain in the next two to three quarters at least.
We believe there are already enough general-purpose public blockchains in the market to meet most needs. The reason we are building our own blockchain is driven by a very specific goal: to serve our own trading product. We need a chain that can provide the performance we desire, the transparency we require, and also support privacy options. Among existing solutions, we couldn't find any that can simultaneously satisfy this "impossible trinity," so we had to build one tailored specifically for ourselves.
So,Currently, Aster Chain is more like an "application chain," with its primary focus on optimizing the transaction experience for Aster itself.Of course, in the future, other projects may discover that they also need similar blockchain infrastructure, but that is not our current priority. In such a competitive industry, you must be among the top 1% in what you do best to survive. For us, that means perfecting an exceptional trading experience.
PANews: Aster Chain is expected to launch its mainnet in 2026. What's your outlook on the market conditions in 2026? (Disclaimer: Not investment advice)
Leonard:I hope so. I'm not good at predicting prices because it involves many complex variables such as market liquidity and macroeconomic sentiment. However, personally, I'm quite confident. As long as we keep focusing on building, I believe we have the opportunity to reach new heights in the next cycle.
Aster Chain's goal is to launch its mainnet by the end of Q1, which will undoubtedly add more utility to our token and is positively significant from a fundamental perspective. We may currently be at the market bottom, so future performance is likely to be better than it is now.
How can we build trust with the community?
PANews:What is the sentiment within the community in the current market environment? After all, price performance directly affects holders' confidence.
Leonard:We fully understand this. Many community sentiments are indeed tied to price performance, as everyone is investing real money. Our team has been carefully listening to community feedback and continuously improving our economic model accordingly. For example, we have continuously optimized our buyback-and-burn mechanism based on protocol revenue, ensuring that the value captured by the protocol is fairly returned to token holders.
We cannot control the market, but we can control our own actions—how many new features we can launch that create value, and how we design the economic model. We are a project with a sustainable positive cash flow,We will continuously use the generated funds for buybacks. I believe that as long as we persist in doing the right things and keep repeating this value cycle, we will eventually accumulate sufficient buying power to drive the token price to new historical highs. This is...It may take one month, two months, or even a year, but as long as the direction is correct, we will see the right results.
Looking Ahead to 2026: Three Hopes for AI, Privacy, and "Sustainable Everything"
PANews:Finally, for 2026, what are you personally most looking forward to?
Leonard:I look forward to three things.
- First, the adoption of privacy featuresWe've been investing a long time in this direction, and I really want to see how many users will eventually choose public trading and how many will opt for private trading. This will be an important validation of our assumptions about user needs.
- Second, the integration of AI and asset managementI firmly believe that AI will shine in the field of "trustless" asset management. Letting AI take over investment decisions and building user trust in this model, I think, will give rise to many exciting innovative products.
- Third, "Everything Can Be Sustained."Perpetual contracts are an excellent trading product due to their 24/7 trading availability, low fees, and high leverage. As long as an asset has sufficient liquidity and can be quantified, it has the potential to be "perpetualized." Last year, people were excited about stocks and commodities. I am curious about what new assets—perhaps even more "qualitative" ones such as influencer impact indices or project reputations—will emerge by 2026, especially as prediction markets continue to grow in popularity. I wonder which of these will mature enough to support perpetual contract trading. This uncertainty is what excites me the most.