How Aster, Lighter and Hyperliquid Fuel the Onchain Rivalry
The post How Aster, Lighter and Hyperliquid Fuel the Onchain Rivalry appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Key takeaways A new wave of DEX wars has shifted from token incentives to a focus on speed, leverage and sustainable infrastructure. Hyperliquid continues to lead the market with over $300 billion in monthly volume, strong liquidity and rising institutional adoption. Aster’s growth is powered by airdrops, Binance-backed credibility and leverage that attract professional traders. Lighter is gaining momentum through its Ethereum layer-2 speed, zero-fee trading model and exclusive points-based yield farming system. Platforms like SushiSwap, PancakeSwap and Curve leveraged yield farming and governance token incentives to attract liquidity. This approach catalyzed rapid capital formation, bringing billions of dollars onchain within a short time. Those early battles were about who could attract the most total value locked (TVL) and traders through token incentives — not about speed, leverage or institutional-grade infrastructure. The dust eventually settled with Uniswap taking the lead. The playbook it established, including liquidity mining, airdrops and tokenized participation, became the foundation for the more sophisticated decentralized exchange (DEX) wars now unfolding in perpetuals. Inside the DEX liquidity wars Hyperliquid, a DEX built on its own high-performance blockchain infrastructure, saw major growth in 2025. The exchange handled more than $300 billion in trading volume around mid-2025, with daily activity occasionally approaching $17 billion. Its deep liquidity and fast execution have helped it gain strong traction among active and professional traders. One of the key drivers behind Hyperliquid’s strong growth was its ability to boost liquidity and user activity through a points-based rewards program. The effort eventually led to a large airdrop. In total, 27.5% of the token supply was distributed to 94,000 addresses, rewarding early and active participants. What started as a way to get more people trading has since become one of the most valuable token distributions in recent crypto history. The airdrop is now valued at…
Filed under: News - @ October 10, 2025 7:25 am