defillama suddenly removed Aster DEX Derivative volume data due to suspected “wash trading” – A wave of controversy erupted in the crypto community.
On the evening of October 5, 2025, the cryptocurrency community was suddenly stirred up when 0xngmi, founder of the famous blockchain statistics platform defillama , posted an official announcement stating that the website would stop providing Derivative volume data of the decentralized exchange (DEX) Aster. The reason is said to be that defillama suspected that Aster's huge Volume showed signs of "wash trading", which is the act of buying and selling yourself to create fake liquidation , inflating data to attract new users.
Abnormal signs on Aster's volume chart
According to analysis published by 0xngmi himself, in recent days, Aster's trading data has shown a pattern that matches the Derivative activity on Binance, to the point that the correlation coefficient has repeatedly exceeded 1 - an extremely rare occurrence in the free market.
It is worth mentioning that, when compared with other exchanges such as Hyperliquid or DYDX, Aster shows a clear difference, making suspicions of Volume faking even higher.
0xngmi said that defillama temporarily removed all Aster Derivative Volume data from the statistics table to ensure the transparency and reputation of the platform. He also emphasized that this move is to protect users and parties using defillama data via API, avoiding inaccurate statistics that affect other developers, projects, or investors. In particular, 0xngmi affirmed that he does not hold any positions related to ASTER or HYPE Token , to eliminate suspicions of conflicts of interest.
Aster ( Token symbol: ASTER) is a decentralized exchange (DEX) specializing in perpetual contracts trading, and also supports Spot Trading . Aster was born after the Astherus project merged with APX Finance in late 2024.
