Original Source: Mable, Trends.fun co-founder

Original Translation: Ismay, kkk, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: In this exclusive interview, Mable, co-founder of the social protocol Trends, had a comprehensive discussion with Leonard, CEO of the hottest Perpetual DEX, Aster. They covered topics ranging from personal experiences to project strategies. Leonard's journey from a traditional investment bank tech role to a blockchain entrepreneur represents a cross-over between finance and Web3. In this interview, he elaborated on how Aster, starting from perpetual contracts, gradually evolved into a multi-chain integrated trading platform. He discussed their on-chain dark pool design to balance privacy and transparency, as well as their approach to efficiency and fairness in token distribution, rewards programs, and buyback strategies.

During the interview, he candidly reflected on the lessons learned from the XPL incident and shared his thoughts on Aster Chain, liquidity provider programs, and future on-chain governance. The entire interview not only presented Aster's product philosophy and strategic layout but also reflected the balance of Web3 entrepreneurship among compliance, privacy, and market demand. It offers readers a valuable perspective to understand the development of the new generation of decentralized exchanges.

Below is the full interview:

Mable: Let's start with your background. How did you get into the crypto industry? What led you to where you are today?

Leonard: The story is quite lengthy. I initially started in the field of bank technology. I was working in a tech role at an investment bank in Hong Kong, which no longer exists. I began by working on technical infrastructure, mainly responsible for building high-frequency trading systems. Later, I transitioned to being a stock market risk engine programmer and spent around five years there. After that, I entered the startup scene and launched a B2B fintech lending platform in the Asia Pacific region. However, my first startup attempt failed.

Mable: Around which year was this?

Leonard: It was around 2015-2016. At that time, the concept of "Internet +" was booming in China, where you could turn any industry into a startup by adding "Internet" to it. Everyone was looking to disrupt the financial industry. However, due to heavy regulatory pressure and some scams that tarnished the industry's reputation, it eventually faded away.

During that process, we were constantly thinking about whether there was a better way to do things. It was around that time that I came across blockchain—probably around 2016, when Bitcoin was already established, and Ethereum had just emerged. I was initially drawn in by ICOs, invested in a few projects, made some money on the first one, thought I was a genius, but then lost everything on the following projects. However, it was through this experience that I truly became interested in the technology.

At that time, we were considering whether we could put all loan information on the blockchain. There was still a debate between "permissioned chains" and "permissionless chains." I remember IBM launched a project called Hyperledger, and I started learning about that, attempting to build a lending platform based on it.

Of course, looking back now, we realize we chose the wrong direction; we should have gone with Ethereum. Later, I also tried collaborating with a gaming company to integrate NFTs and tokens into games, but it was too early at that time, and no one understood it, so it never materialized.

Over the next year or so, I explored many directions and eventually joined the DeFi project Injective Finance in 2019. There, I encountered numerous products and ideas. Later on, dYdX emerged, and we also began to contemplate the possibility of building our own on-chain trading platform, which led to the inception of the first iteration of Aster, the precursor to what later evolved into Aster.

The trajectory of crypto projects has always involved iterations: from dYdX to GMX to Hyperliquid. We went through all these stages, constantly adjusting, experimenting, until we created something that the market truly needed.

Mable: How do you define Aster now? And what do you hope it will become in one to three years?

Leonard: A year is already a long time. If you had asked me this question two weeks ago, I might have given you a completely different answer. After all, in the crypto world, a year is quite a stretch. To outsiders, Aster is a multi-chain trading platform, a multi-chain DEX. But in my view, we are no longer a traditional perp DEX.

Most people see Aster as a project within the Binance ecosystem because we initially started on the BNB Chain and received assistance from CZ. However, we have since expanded beyond just the BNB Chain; we also support Arbitrum, OP, Linea, Solana, and will integrate more chains in the future.

We did indeed start out as a perp project, but in the past two weeks, it has been our spot trading product that has attracted a large number of new users, as everyone wants to buy the Aster token, which can only be traded on-chain through the order book.

At the same time, we are also one of the largest yield asset providers on the BNB Chain, with products like USDS and aUSDT, where users can earn yield while trading.

Therefore, we have now evolved from a simple perp project into a comprehensive multi-chain trading platform, aiming to improve user capital efficiency—you can deposit money to earn yield, while using these assets as collateral to participate in more strategies.

In the future, we hope to support more chains, more assets, and reconstruct all mainstream products and experiences from CEXs on-chain, thus creating a complete and composable DEX product matrix.

Many people will compare us to other projects, such as dYdX or GMX. But our true competitor is not other DEXs, but CEXs themselves. What we hope to achieve is the on-chain version of Binance. Ultimately, we hope that one day we can surpass Binance—our largest investor.

Within a year, we hope to replicate 80% of the product experience on CEXs, but reimagined in a fully on-chain manner. Five years later, I hope the entire DEX industry can surpass CEXs, and we will be a leader in that transformation.

Mable: There has always been a narrative in the market that Binance strongly supports Aster, even using it as a "weapon" against Hyperliquid. So, if you were to describe Aster in one sentence, what is its core value proposition compared to CEXs or other DEXs?

Leonard: I think the most core point is that our entire infrastructure is built entirely on-chain, giving us a fundamental advantage in "self-custody" and "transparency." This is our biggest difference from CEXs.

Additionally, as a DEX, we have greater flexibility in our governance model. CEXs are highly inefficient when it comes to listing or adjusting products because their processes are too centralized, approval is slow, and they have many risk control processes. On-chain governance, on the other hand, can continuously evolve with the community and market demands.

You now see projects like pump.fun, which may have taken several years to try out new models, but these ideas originally came from the community. In the end, the products that can survive must be the ones that best match the market.

This is the beauty of decentralization.

And we have been building our product in that direction from day one, so I believe on-chain trading platforms can more quickly find their market fit.

Of course, from a startup perspective, we are also more flexible and responsive. CEXs have more resources, but DEXs are closer to the community and more agile. For example, when it comes to listing new tokens or products, we are faster.

Mable: So are you implying that future new markets or new token listings will be decided through governance voting?

Leonard: That is one of the directions we are seriously considering.

But we also need to strike a balance. In the early stages of the project, for the sake of execution efficiency, we have indeed retained a certain degree of centralized control. This is to ensure that decisions can be implemented promptly to maximize the benefits to the project and the community.

However, we are also "pragmatists." We know that in the future, there will definitely be a gradual transition towards decentralized governance—when the entire system becomes more mature, and we have identified a clear business model, we will gradually relinquish control and allow the community to participate in governance.

Mable: I totally agree; a phased decentralization is a process. And indeed, a bit of centralization in the early stages is more efficient—many projects now, with one address holding more than 50% of the voting power, governance is just a formality.

Leonard: Yes, so governance is also something we have to approach step by step.

Mable: We will discuss your "dark pool design" later, but I want to ask a personal question first—besides Aster, what is your personal favorite DEX?

Leonard: That's too easy, it's definitely Hyperliquid.

In fact, I have tried almost all products. You could say that these projects have indeed ushered in a new era of Orderbook perp DEX. But the true OG is actually projects like GMX, which laid the foundation for subsequent LP models and market-making frameworks.

However, I also think there are some interesting projects that are not yet well known, such as Surf Protocol. I have tried it myself; they also have products with thousandfold leverage, like us, but they adopt a completely different profit distribution model—users only need to pay fees when they are making money, which is quite interesting.

And there's JoJo on Base, I really like their UI. It's the kind of UI that gives you the instant feeling of "Wow, that's cool" when you look at it.

I feel like the entire perp product is becoming more and more homogenized. Everyone is chasing after new features, and as soon as you release a user-attracting feature, others can immediately copy it. After all, Web3 is a completely open world, and the barrier to copying many things is not high. So the core of competition becomes "what area are you really specialized in." Some teams excel at high leverage, while others focus on an oracle-driven LP model. In the end, everyone has their own expertise, and it's really hard to say who's better.

Aster's Dark Pool Design

Mable: So let's talk about your Dark Pool design. The hidden orders on Aster cannot be seen in terms of direction and quantity. So here's the question: Can users verify afterward whether the matching of these orders is fair? Have you provided some form of public record?

Leonard: We do have the ability to do post-trade verification now, such as by inviting a third party to independently audit. Our matching engine is capable of snapshots, and all trades can be replayed for verification. However, there is currently no way for "public verification."

But this itself is a bit of a paradox—if you can infer the transaction content afterward, then this hidden mechanism is meaningless. So at the moment, we indeed do not have any way for anyone to publicly verify.

Of course, if someone has a good solution, we are very open to cooperation. We are continuously improving this part of the product design. If someone is working on a chain or feature related to private transactions, please feel free to contact us for collaboration. We have some ideas, but they are not fully developed yet.

Mable: So you implemented the Dark Pool design on the first day of launch, indicating a very strong conviction in this direction, right?

Leonard: In fact, we have been thinking about this issue from the very beginning. In the TradFi world, the volume of dark pools and OTC far exceeds that of the public trading market.

Many people have talked to us about this. If this system is moved to the chain, will there be a similar demand? This is actually a pretty conflicting concept—blockchain is all about transparency, but financial transactions inherently have a "privacy preference."

Later, there happened to be a public conversation between CZ and James Wynn, where James mentioned he was "liquidation sniped" on Hyperliquid because the transactions were public. CZ responded that on-chain transactions should remain transparent. This debate inspired us.

At the time, we thought that this might be an opportunity. Everyone was aware of this, so we decided to seize the moment and give it a try. So we basically worked on R&D overnight and launched this feature in about a week and a half. CZ was also our advisor, Yzi Labs was an investor, so we thought it was a good entry point and went for it.

After the launch, we did see users trying it out, but to be honest, the demand was not as high as we had anticipated. Later, we realized that if someone really cares about transaction privacy, they might find it more convenient to use a CEX.

However, we didn't give up. We will continue to explore and test whether there is a more suitable model for on-chain privacy transactions and OTC. Our goal is to "be able to verify without leaking market signals." It is still in the experimental stage, but currently, retail users' preference for privacy is not that strong.

Mable: This is actually similar to TradFi's dark pools, mainly serving not ordinary trades, but institutions. In other words, if you want this product to succeed, do you have to wait for more institutions to enter?

Leonard: You're right. The issue is that once it involves institutions, it will involve a whole regulatory and compliance framework. And our current anonymous, non-KYC status is actually a threshold that most institutions cannot cross.

We have also talked to some institutions, and they have all expressed interest, but they are stuck at this point and can't enter. So I think if you want to start a new Web3 project now, you really should consider the direction of "permissioned mechanism."

Although we are not working on this aspect right now, I do think that adding a bit of "permission control" layer in certain scenarios could possibly be the answer to resolving the privacy and compliance conflict.

I guess the next step is that Prop Trading's high-frequency funds may start experimenting in the next 1-2 years.

Mable: Now back to Aster's Token distribution, on-chain we see that 96% of the supply is concentrated in a few addresses. Can you explain the structure of these wallets?

Leonard: I have also seen people discussing this online, but that is not entirely accurate. We do not control all the Token in these addresses.

We do control a portion of it, but about 80% of the Tokens are in a locked state, which can be verified on-chain, and the distribution is also very clear: 50% are airdropped, with 8% being an initial airdrop, and about 40% are directly sent to on-chain wallets, all of which are verifiable.

Those few largest wallet addresses are actually asset contract addresses, used for users to conduct spot trading, so naturally there will be a large amount of tokens held there.

After we enabled withdrawals, a few large holders withdrew their tokens. We do not know who they are, but they did not choose to directly sell in the trading contract. Instead, they withdrew to their own addresses, indicating that they may be long-term holders.

I understand everyone's skepticism about the "96% concentration" figure, but in reality, at least 80% of the share is time-locked on-chain and transparent.

Currently, only about 10% is circulating, including users who converted from APX, accounting for about 10%; the initial airdrop accounts for approximately 8%; and there will be ongoing linear releases, including the marketing budget, all of which are already documented by us and verifiable on-chain.

The reason the contract address appears to hold all the tokens is because most of the trading activity occurs within this contract, but in fact, many tokens belong to users.

Mable: Is Yzi Labs your only current private investor?

Leonard: Yes, but they are only minority shareholders with a low ownership percentage. However, they have provided us with a lot of support.

Mable: Does their portion of tokens have a lock-up period? The community would be quite concerned about this.

Leonard: We cannot disclose specific protocol details, but we can say that they have no intention of cashing out. They are not in need of money and are not in a rush to sell.

From TGE to now, our performance in the BNB ecosystem has already proved the project's value. So, even without a forced lock-up, they have no motivation to dump the market.

The tokens they can receive come from only a small part of the 5% team allocation, which is also entirely transparent and verifiable on-chain. Because they invested in equity, not in the tokens themselves.

Moreover, this portion's proportion is much lower than their actual investment. You can think of it as a very small incentive share. But precisely because the token has seen a significant increase since listing, even this small piece of the 5% now seems "not insignificant."

However, in terms of the Token ratio, I don't think we need to worry too much. And from a motivational standpoint, they have very little reason to sell coins now. It's just that we have a confidentiality obligation regarding the specific protocol and can't disclose too much.

What is the logic behind the points plan for the second phase?

Mable: So since we're talking about Tokens, let's also talk about your Genesis second-phase points plan. I remember you're currently running points, just entering the second cycle. Could you briefly explain the design logic?

Leonard: Of course. This round of the points plan actually started two weeks before the TGE and will last a total of four weeks.

We just finished the third week, with one week left. During this round, we will allocate 4% of the total supply, aiming to distribute it as fairly and evenly as possible to everyone.

We particularly want to reward those users who genuinely participate in trading. After all, this kind of activity is bound to attract some users who are only here to farm points, so we have been continuously optimizing the rules to ensure that genuine traders, loyal users, and long-term holders can receive rewards.

Of course, we cannot list all the criteria, or else someone will always find a loophole. But for example, users with long holding periods are usually genuine traders. We also look at some other behavioral data to filter out obviously farming accounts and try to ensure that rewards are distributed to real users.

In terms of impact, this round of activity has been quite successful in terms of trading volume. After we announced the end time of the points activity and the total allocation, the platform's trading volume skyrocketed directly, even surpassing other projects, briefly becoming the top-ranked project in terms of trading volume within the perp DEX.

We have been ranked first in daily trading volume for three to four consecutive days.

Mable: So in the third season, do you hope everyone will also try something else, or does it not matter?

Leonard: Of course, we also hope that everyone will migrate their spot trading activities to our platform and then tell us what features they really want. Because right now many people are testing, and we have received a lot of feedback. Even though sometimes it may sound a bit harsh, we still take it very seriously.

Because now we are very clear about what we want to do. So in the new season, we hope everyone will come and experience our spot product, tell us which assets you want to see listed, and what features you would like to add.

Mable: But in terms of spot liquidity trading pairs, it probably won't have as many other assets to trade as on Aster, right?

Leonard: Yes, currently we only have some mainstream ones, such as BTC, ETH. We hope to collaborate with more issuing platforms to provide liquidity for early-stage projects, which is a direction we have tried before and will continue to try, such as asset generation processes and early asset liquidity.

Because we have mentioned that one of the core aspects of the entire Adventure Index is how to onboard new assets more quickly. If we can also quickly provide liquidity for these assets, then the whole process will be very efficient, which is what the market truly needs. So we will continue to push this forward on different projects.

Mable: So regarding the rewards for the second season, will the actual distribution be postponed until the end of the third season? Or is there another arrangement?

Leonard: Our idea is this: after the second season, how many points and allocation you can receive will be clearly and transparently displayed to everyone. As for the specific distribution method, we are still in the design phase, considering what is most suitable.

For example, we cannot only focus on new participants but also need to consider existing token holders. Everyone will be concerned that if we immediately dump the 4% reward on the market, will it cause significant selling pressure. So there will certainly be some adjustment space for the project in terms of the distribution pace. But the amount you can receive will be immediately made transparent to everyone after the end of the second season.

Mable: So will there be an unlocking schedule or a similar arrangement?

Leonard: We are indeed studying the possibility of doing this, and we will design a plan based on the situation, which will be announced soon—after all, there is only one week left, so everyone will know soon.

This is also a key point we are considering, how to find a balance between the interests of existing holders and the incentives for new users. So I think in the next two to three days, we will make the final decision and release an announcement.

Mable: I saw people in the community discussing, but no one gave a clear answer, so I thought it would be better to ask you directly during the live broadcast. So, before entering the third season, you currently have not implemented any incentive measures for spot trading, right? So, as things stand now, what is the volume distribution like for perpetuals, spot trading, and some of the high-risk products you just mentioned?

Leonard: Perpetual contracts still account for the vast majority, as the current market's trading demand is mainly concentrated in this area.

Roughly over 90% of the trading volume is in perpetual contracts, with over 80% of it concentrated in BTC perpetual contracts. So, in terms of trading volume distribution, that's roughly how it looks.

Mable: Interestingly, BNB is actually not included in this, I initially thought that BNB would at least have a similar proportion to Ethereum in perpetual trading.

Leonard: I think this is because for those who truly want to trade BNB, Binance's own product is already very mature. In other markets, the demand for BNB is not that high, so the trading volume is relatively low.

Mable: I think I've asked enough about tokens. Let's talk about the XPL incident. I know there may be some details you can't disclose, but within the scope you can share, could you take us through the situation at that time? For example, the XPL perpetual index pricing configuration error caused the price to briefly spike to $4, resulting in losses for some users. Could you tell everyone about the post-incident review process?

Leonard: Regarding this experience, actually, later on Twitter, some very smart people also summarized the key issues. I believe the biggest mistake we made was that it was stuck in "pre-market mode" at that time.

If it were a regular perpetual contract, it would automatically follow the correct index price, and there would be no price spikes or deviations from the market price. However, pre-market perpetuals themselves carry such risks—because their pricing can only rely on an internal order book, not on the public market price. In other words, in the pre-market phase, there is originally no external price source, so the price can only be derived from our internal order book. When adjusting the configuration, we mistakenly derived an incorrect price from the internal order book.

We quickly discovered this error and immediately switched it back to regular perpetual mode, thus restoring normalcy. It was our mistake, and we promptly made a decision—fully compensating the affected users at our own expense. Because at that time, there was no better solution to the problem. It also reminded us once again: pre-market products themselves carry higher risks.

In the future, we will implement some improvement measures. First, even for pre-market perpetuals, we can obtain oracle prices from external pre-market markets, such as referencing pre-market data from exchanges like Binance, instead of relying solely on the internal order book. If such a mechanism had existed at the time, this incident could have been completely avoided.

Of course, as long as it is the pre-market, risks are inevitable. Without external price signals and with insufficient liquidity, similar price divergences are always possible. Therefore, it is necessary for us to find a balance in two aspects. On the one hand, we need to assess whether we have sufficient capability to manage such risks. On the other hand, we need to evaluate the market demand for the product. If there is indeed a market demand, risk control measures must be enhanced to ensure system robustness, avoid the recurrence of the same mistakes.

Mable: Regarding the oracle issue, I actually have a related question. I remember you also plan to launch a product for tokenizing stocks. So, where will the price oracle or data source for such assets come from? Do you plan to offer 24/7 trading?

Leonard: The oracle we are currently using comes from sources like Pyth. Currently, due to the limitations of the oracle itself, we cannot achieve 24/7 trading. For instance, when there is no data, we cannot provide continuous pricing. We can adopt a method similar to "pre-market," where if there is no oracle quote, we use an internal order book to deduce the price.

However, the issue with this approach is that we can only restrict trading within a price range. Yet, this essentially defeats the purpose—if fluctuations are limited to ±2%, people usually lack interest in trading; and once real volatility occurs, the demand for trading is at its peak, but due to strict risk control, normal trading is not possible, posing a high risk to users.

Therefore, currently, we are unable to provide stock tokenization trading services after hours. Unless we can find a better oracle that can cover a longer time frame. For example, we are currently studying some index-based assets that have futures trading in multiple markets, allowing the oracle to provide price data for almost 23 hours a day. Taking the Nasdaq index as an example, it can continuously obtain market data through the futures market. If it is such an asset, we may open trading for close to 24 hours. However, for individual stocks, we are still constrained by the fact that oracles cannot provide prices round the clock.

Will Aster Conduct Buybacks?

Mable: I remember someone mentioned in another interview that you may have a buyback plan, so how often would such initiatives usually take place?

Leonard: I think we currently do not want to commit to a fixed schedule. We prefer to allow the project team or operators more autonomy in the use of income. That being said, we will indeed conduct buybacks and allocate a certain percentage of income to it. However, the specific amount and frequency will be announced later. But one thing is certain, we will not design it as a rigid, entirely predictable mechanism. Compared to some other projects, we will retain more flexibility to optimize the allocation based on the income situation.

Mable: Yes, actually, on this issue, different founders have very different views. For example, the founders of Pump.fun believe that buyback is not the best use of funds; it is only done to meet external expectations and pressures, so it is considered an industry practice. On the other hand, the people at Hyperliquid believe that all revenue should be 100% reinvested back into the token, which is their firm stance. I know your current response does not represent Aster's final decision, but on a conceptual level, how do you view this execution logic?

Leonard: Personally, I am a more pragmatic person, and I believe that the best answer often lies somewhere in between the extremes. Extreme solutions are difficult to apply in all circumstances. Sometimes, using 100% of revenue for buybacks may be the optimal solution, but in other cases, allocating a higher proportion to project development may be more advantageous.

So the key is to maintain flexibility. As we conduct one or two buybacks, the community will gradually build trust and believe that we are using funds in good faith and responsibly. Eventually, as the project matures, we can also make the mechanism more automated and standardized. I have a traditional financial background and have read a lot about related topics, so I tend to be more rational and cautious in this regard.

When I was younger, I read a lot of investment books, so I can understand why some people say that buybacks may not always be the optimal choice. Because fundamentally, it is a bit like dividends; when an institution chooses to pay dividends, it usually means there is no better way to use that money. For projects like ours, we indeed have many opportunities to use funds in more valuable ways, such as investing in the team, investing in partnerships, and driving further project growth.

Another crucial factor is that the token price directly affects the efficiency of buybacks. If an automated algorithm is used to execute buybacks while the price is at a high level, the effect may be counterproductive. It may work sometimes, but it often distorts market expectations and artificially inflates the price.

So I think two points are key:

First, the proportion of buybacks and how much of the revenue should be used for buybacks should be flexibly adjusted based on the project's stage, rather than being set in stone.

Second, I believe that 100% transparency is not necessary at the execution level; otherwise, it may reduce efficiency. However, after the buyback is completed, all information must be publicly transparent, recorded on the blockchain for everyone to supervise. Otherwise, it becomes a gimmick: you announce a buyback, but no one knows where you buy back from, how much is bought back, which makes it meaningless.

Therefore, we need a certain level of flexibility in execution; however, post-execution, all data must be transparent and accessible to ensure that the outside world can clearly see what we have actually done.

Mable: So you might disclose it in this way, for example, this quarter you decided to use only 30% of the revenue for buybacks, while also explaining why the remaining funds need to be used for other purposes. This logic makes perfect sense.

Leonard: Exactly, and we can adjust at any time. If the community provides strong feedback and presents reasonable opinions, we can completely change course. It is precisely because the ratio was not fixed from the beginning that we have this flexibility to continuously optimize over time.

Mable: Yes, especially as your market cap grows, it's impossible to satisfy everyone and a balance must be found. I believe you have already experienced this situation.

Leonard: Indeed, our scale has grown rapidly, and we are constantly learning.

Mable: I'd like to discuss the product itself again. I've seen your current features, and you mentioned earlier that you hope to gradually provide more functionality and services similar to centralized exchanges. However, you already have the grid trading feature. Why did you prioritize this at the time?

Leonard: Actually, we launched this feature very early on, back when we were in the internal testing phase of the trading platform. Obviously, this is a very practical feature, especially for those who are not particularly professional traders. If they just want to run a certain strategy, this tool is very convenient. It's also good for the trading platform to offer such a feature from the beginning to ensure user experience.

It's not just about fee income; more importantly, it's about liquidity. Because most retail users, if you don't provide them with such tools, they often just place market orders, consuming the order book directly. But if you equip them with such tools, they will trade with limit orders, which not only allows them to run strategies but also enables them to become liquidity providers. So, it's actually a win-win situation: retail users can run strategies while also providing liquidity to the market. That's why we launched this feature early on and have continued it to this day, gradually solidifying it.

Mable: So what is your current trading user profile like? I assume you also pay attention to data such as IP distribution.

Leonard: Previously, most of our IP was concentrated in Asia. Of course, this information was mostly self-hosted, and we did not need to hold all user information. Just looking at overall IP usage, before the TGE, users were mainly from Asia. However, after the TGE, we clearly felt a growing interest from the Western world. You can also see on Twitter that more and more users speaking English and European languages are discussing us. So, it can be said that the user base is changing.

Mable: I heard that some external teams are using your API and data, and it seems that someone has provided feedback on the data format issue. Do you have any improvement plans in this regard?

Leonard: Yes, we have received a lot of feedback in this regard. Our team is almost working around the clock to address these issues. If sometimes we are unable to respond promptly, we apologize, but we are indeed gradually cleaning up technical debt. Everyone can also join our Discord at any time, or DM me directly, or contact us through our official Twitter account. In fact, after the TGE, some developers proactively contacted us and provided valuable technical improvement suggestions. For example, one of the long-standing issues that has been bothering us is the slow deposit speed of Solana contracts. Later, a developer proactively offered to help, and now a small group has been formed to directly coordinate with our team to research solutions.

We are now releasing almost three iterative updates every day to ensure that system improvements can be implemented as soon as possible. I believe everyone will see significant improvements soon. If there is still anything bothering you, please let us know. We sincerely hope to fix it as soon as possible.

How to Build Aster Chain?

Mable: Yes, if there is still a need on the Solana side, we will definitely help you resolve it. I think this is similar to the situation with Arbitrum or other chains, and everyone should be very interested in cooperating with you. I'd like to change the topic; you mentioned Aster Chain in another interview before, could you talk more about it? What role do you expect this chain to play in the future?

Leonard: We hope that all on-chain transactions can be transparent, verifiable, and at the same time, to some extent, preserve transaction privacy. This is the goal of why we are building Aster Chain.

Some competitors spend a lot of resources building a complete ecosystem on their own chain, but this is not the direction we want to focus on. We prefer to integrate with other chains, then aggregate the credit of these transactions onto our chain for everyone to validate. Not to say that approach is bad; other projects have done an excellent job in building their ecosystem. It's just that our focus is different—we are more concerned about the transaction experience.

We hope to focus on providing a good transaction environment and user experience for at least the next three to six months. Aster Chain's positioning is to provide transparency and verifiability, rather than trying to create another "one-chain-to-rule-them-all" to attract everyone to build on it. Frankly, I think there are already enough chains out there, and we don't need yet another new L1.

But what we do need is a better decentralized transaction experience. So I believe this is where Aster Chain's value lies. Of course, the strategy may evolve over time, and there may be pivots in the future, but at least for now, we want to focus on building a better transaction platform.

Mable: I understand, just like Hyperliquid also benefits from having its own chain, being able to collect gas fees and protocol revenue. I guess you had similar considerations when starting out, right?

Leonard: Yes, I think in the long run, we may invest more in the chain itself. But in the short term, our focus is still on getting all transaction features right. After all, building a complete ecosystem is a very massive and complex engineering task, and we don't want to be distracted by it now. What we are best at and what we should focus on is building a fully-featured transaction platform with a user experience close to that of centralized exchanges. As for the L1 ecosystem, that is something to consider in the future.

Mable: Right, I mean, suppose a lot of transactions are settled on Aster Chain, then you essentially gain protocol revenue, and this revenue does not flow to other L1s or other EVM chains. I mean, is this the underlying logic behind what you're doing?

Leonard: There are two points. First, currently, we do place transactions on our chain, but it's only running internally and is not yet fully public. It does consume Gas, but it has not been fully launched. We want this information to be public so that everyone can run nodes and validate. That's the goal we want to achieve. As for whether we should build a complete ecosystem around it, it's not a top priority right now. We might do it later, but it's not the focus at the moment. That will be considered after we believe the platform is mature enough.

Mable: Do you have a Market Maker Program? Can anyone apply to join?

Leonard: We do have a Market Maker Program. If you check our website's documentation, there is a Market Maker Program page that provides detailed information, including trading volume requirements, fees, and the incentive pool tokens they can earn, which are separate from other scoring systems. Those interested can contact us directly via email, and all information is available on that page.

Mable: Could you share how many market makers are currently onboarded, or is that information not disclosed at the moment?

Leonard: I won't disclose specific numbers, but I can say that we have been in touch with many and quite a few have already onboarded. Active market makers are dynamic because with higher trading volumes, they become more active. If there is an increase in liquidity demand, more people will join.

Yes, they mainly provide credit trading, and they can only earn money when there is a liquidity demand. Over the past two weeks, the trading volume has been very high, and many are willing to pay fees for quality trades. Every day, we receive many inquiries from those interested in joining the Market Maker Program because they see the market liquidity and understand they can earn money by providing liquidity. There is a significant demand for this.

Mable: Currently, you only have a website and desktop version. Will you develop a mobile app or distribute through other front ends?

Leonard: Actually, we do have a mobile app, but perhaps we haven't publicized it enough to let everyone know we have a complete product.

Mable: Oh, really?

Leonard: Yes, we have an Android version available for download on Google Play. The iOS version is still in the process of being listed on the App Store, but it is indeed available.

We are also collaborating with other wallets. For example, we are partnering with Trust Wallet and SafePal to have them help us build the front end. Similar to what Base is doing, both Base and Phantom have also done something similar. We will soon be live on Trust Wallet, allowing everyone to start trading directly using Trust Wallet or SafePal. We are working with multiple partners to progress, and if any wallet wants to collaborate with us on the front end, we are very open to that.

Since we support multiple chains, users do not need to first transfer assets across chains. For example, with Solana, you can deposit directly. So if any audience members want to work on the frontend with us, rather than for us, please feel free to contact us. We are also looking for partners.

「Original Article Link」

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia