The third season of Aster DEX’s airdrop campaign kicks off

Aster DEX has announced on X that Stage 2 of its Genesis airdrop will wrap up today at 23:59 UTC. The stage distributes 4% of the total $ASTER supply, about 320 million tokens, potentially worth hundreds of millions depending on price action at the time of claim. 

The checker for those who qualify to be rewarded for using the DEX will be live on October 10, giving folks a glance at their eligibility which is based on Rh points earned from their trading volume, holding positions, and using yield-bearing collateral like asBNB or USDF.

Aster’s third airdrop stage begins right after, but with different rules

Users who qualify for the second stage rewards will be allowed to claim from October 14, without any vesting or lockups. This means that participants have the go-ahead to trade right away or continue to hold their tokens. 

As for the tokens that go unclaimed, they will be rolled into ecosystem funds after October 17. In essence, if you don’t use it, you lose it. 

The team communicated that token allocation for the second stage will be announced later. 

What changes in stage 3? 

The third stage will be different from the second in various ways, according to the project’s recent post. During stage 2, users were directed toward farming perp trading points, which has led to talk of wash trading inflating volumes. 

However, all eyes will be on Aster’s anti-abuse filters now. Crypto folks tend to loudly voice their discontent when real retail traders get skimpy allocations, which leads to criticism and sell pressure in extreme cases. 

Still, observers have praised the no-lockup design. Even though it could cause large-scale token sales on the open markets, the team is banking on the $120M+ weekly fees it generates to perform buybacks, which could be sufficient to stabilize the price in that scenario.

The third stage will also include spot trading rewards, as well as multi-dimensional scoring updates, symbol-specific boost multipliers and enhanced team boost mechanics, upgrades that are supposed to promote fair competition, recognize quality trading, and reward real traders. 

From Stage 3, Aster has also announced that the standard referral rate for all users will remain at 10%. However, traders who reach the required volume will be able to apply to unlock higher referral rates. Once approved, their rate will be upgraded within a few hours. 

In the past few months, perp trading DEXs have become the hot topic, and different alternatives have emerged to challenge Hyperliquid’s market dominance. However, Aster DEX stands out as one of the contenders with a real shot to knock off the champion. 

Allocations for stage two will significantly affect the level of engagement in the next stage. For now, all eyes will be on October 10, when the checker is expected to go live. 

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