ASTER Loses Competition to Hyperliquid, but Is a Price Crash Coming?

Key Insights

• Daily active users on ASTER were only 6, suggesting its contention with HYPE could have just reached an end.
• The PNL showed a disparity between two whales who both went long on ASTER, but their results were contrasting.
• The distribution sizes of small traders were the same as the total purchases made by all the big whales in the past 10 days.

The AsterDEX (ASTER) token’s price may be on the verge of a crash due to deteriorating network activity.

Traders used to compare the token to Hyperliquid and even tipped it would win the competition. The altcoin has been declining since then, and it can’t keep up with HYPE’s stable price.

Whales rotated millions from HYPE into ASTER, sparking a sharp rally. Analysts noted ASTER’s surge and CZ’s backing, while HYPE struggled to maintain dominance in the DEX token battle.

Has Hyperliquid Killed ASTER?

According to Token Terminal data, ASTER only had 6 daily active addresses, which was a 54% drop. These addresses also declined by 58.5%, to 44 weekly. The monthly chart showed no change in the activity.

This data indicated that ASTER’s network activity was getting worse. However, its L1 chain was still in the test phase. It confirmed that ASTER’s user base had significantly decreased.

In the last 30 days, ASTER’s fees went down by 36.5% to $0.9742, and the number of transactions went down by 31.7% to 461. Daily volume reached $2.4 billion. A few wallets alone drove most of the activity.

For Hyperliquid on a daily basis, it had a volume of $4.8 billion, 47.1K active traders, and $1.4 million in purchases. So, Hyperliquid’s real activity was more important than Aster’s decline, which could mean the end of the rivalry.

ASTER Whales Getting Mixed Returns

Data for two ASTER whales further affirmed why the market was declining. The returns from their long positions were in opposite directions. This split result showed that ASTER was still in a state of indecision.

The whale with a 5x leveraged long was facing a $1.66 million floating loss. The 4x leveraged position returned a profit of $1.64 million.

While it showed the importance of timing, it suggested a weakening market. The price of ASTER fluctuated like a pendulum, showing no discernible direction.

The result indicated that bulls were pushing prices up, but bears were fighting back as well. This left positions in a state of uncertainty, resulting in whales receiving mixed signals, with gains and losses nearly equal.

While on-chain activity suggested the token could even crash, does technical analysis support that?

Is ASTER Price Crash Coming?

ASTER price went from a low of $0.5351 to a high of $0.7800 and then back down to $0.6933 on the 15-minute chart. These levels were significantly lower than the initial days, which were above $1.50.

Hyblock Volume Delta indicators showed that the order flow was not clear. The cumulative delta was $11.01 million positive, which meant that there was net buying across all trade sizes. But the 10K-100K filter showed a negative $25.82 million, which suggested a mid-size distribution.

Between 100K and 1M was a positive $23.36 million, suggesting that bigger players were still building up. The 1M–10M at $1.068 million positive backed this up, but the 10M+ stayed flat.

Interestingly, the small-trader distribution was the same as past big-whale buys. This meant that whales were offloading but with position sizes similar to those of small traders.

However, the positive deltas in larger volumes go against this. That could suggest that support may be coming instead of a collapse, opening the door for two possible outcomes.

Altogether, network activity showed that ASTER was at risk of collapse. However, the technical setup and trader behavior contradicted that prediction.

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