"Maji Brother" Huang Licheng first went long on ASTER, getting on board with 3x leverage to profit.

The cryptocurrency market has once again stirred up waves! Renowned investor “Brother Ma Ji” Huang Li Cheng has changed his previous bearish stance, and on September 23, he took a long position on the popular token ASTER for the first time, buying 100,000 ASTER with 3x leverage at an entry price of $1.7876, totaling an investment of $185,000. This sudden shift has attracted widespread attention in the market, especially given that his long positions in ETH, HYPE, and PUMP have unrealized losses exceeding $20 million.

“Brother Maji” Suddenly Turns: Strategic Shift from Air Force to Long Positions

(Source: Hyperliquid)

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa)'s monitoring, Huang Licheng opened a 3x leveraged long position of 100,000 ASTER at the price of $1.7876 on September 23. This action is particularly noteworthy in the market because “Majid Brother” had previously held a bearish stance on ASTER, and this is his first bullish operation on the token.

What is even more surprising is that Huang Licheng did not hold this position for long. Just a few hours later, he closed the position, realizing a profit of $7659, demonstrating a flexible short-term trading strategy. This quick in-and-out trading style stands in stark contrast to his long positions in other tokens.

Market Pressure Behind: The Difficult Choice of 20 Million USD unrealized losses

Huang Licheng's operation is not an isolated event. According to Onchain Lens monitoring, against the backdrop of an overall market decline, “Brother Ma Ji” has unrealized losses of over 20 million USD on long positions in ETH (15x leverage), HYPE, and PUMP (5x leverage). To avoid being forced to liquidate, he was compelled to partially close these positions to cut losses.

This situation may explain why Huang Licheng chose to conduct relatively light short-term operations on ASTER—under the pressure on the main positions, to make up for some losses through flexible short-term trading while avoiding taking on too much risk on a single asset.

ASTER market enthusiasm continues to rise: mysterious large investors get on board with 13.97 million USD

Huang Licheng's entry is just a microcosm of the rising popularity of the ASTER market. According to @lookonchain, on September 24, a newly created wallet address 0x5bd4 purchased 6.72 million ASTER from a CEX, with a total value of up to 13.97 million USD, at an average transaction price of about 2.08 USD per coin.

This massive transaction further confirms the strong interest in ASTER from the market and reflects that institutional investors may be accelerating their entry. Investors can check the activity and position of address 0x5bd4 on Arkham Intel to verify and continuously monitor the movements of this important market participant.

Aster DEX Rises: Surpassing Hyperliquid to Become the New Industry Leader

The surge in the price of ASTER Token is closely linked to the rapid development of its underlying platform, Aster DEX. As a newly launched perpetual futures decentralized exchange, Aster has achieved remarkable accomplishments in a short period of time — its daily trading volume has surpassed that of the industry veteran platform Hyperliquid for the first time.

According to data from DeFi Llama, Aster DEX generates daily fees exceeding 4 million USD, while Hyperliquid's fees are only 2.91 million USD. During active trading periods, both DEXs rank among the top five fee generators of the day, showcasing the immense potential of the decentralized derivatives trading market.

Aster's perpetual futures daily trading volume has exceeded 4 billion USD, becoming the most active platform among all perpetual futures DEXs. This achievement is particularly remarkable as Aster started competing for the industry's top position just a few days after its launch.

ASTER Token Hits All-Time High: Driven by Technological Innovation and Token Economics

The rapid expansion of the Aster trading platform has directly driven the price increase of its native Token ASTER. On Tuesday, the trading price of ASTER hit a historical high, rising to $1.96. Since its launch, this asset has cumulatively increased by over 257%, with a relatively small decline, demonstrating remarkable market resilience.

The price increase of ASTER somewhat mimics the HYPE token of Hyperliquid, but also incorporates some innovative adjustments. Aster DEX plans to adopt a buyback mechanism, but the specific implementation will be determined by community voting. This democratized governance approach may further enhance community participation and token value.

Technical Advantages and Market Innovations

The success of Aster DEX lies not only in its trading volume but also in its technological innovation and market differentiation strategy:

· Extremely high leverage: Aster offers the highest leverage in the market, even adding a 300x leverage market for HYPE, providing traders with the ultimate betting opportunity on competitors' Tokens.

· Multi-chain integration: Unlike Hyperliquid, which operates only on its native chain, Aster directly obtains USDT inflows from CEX hot wallets, demonstrating stronger cross-chain compatibility.

· Points Farming Program: The second phase of the Rh points program launched by Aster greatly enhances platform activity, including daily trading challenges and position rewards.

· CEX ecosystem integration: The success of ASTER has also increased the activity of CEX on-chain DEX, making PancakeSwap leap to become a leading DEX.

Reshaping the Industry Competitive Landscape: Hyperliquid vs Aster

Although Aster has surpassed Hyperliquid in trading volume, the latter still maintains a lead in total locked value (TVL). Hyperliquid has a locked value of over $6.48 billion, while Aster follows closely with a locked value of approximately $1.3 billion.

Hyperliquid retains the advantages of the native chain and plans to launch a stablecoin, with its USDC liquidity exceeding $5.6 billion. Meanwhile, the HYPE Token is currently consolidating around $46.98, showing weakness after the general decline in altcoin prices, still having a considerable distance from the historical high of around $60.

It is worth noting that the second-ranked user on the Aster leaderboard is an active user marked as “c and z,” which has sparked market speculation that the CEX founder may be actively trading on the platform. This possibility has further increased the market's attention on Aster.

Investment Insight: Investment Opportunities in the Perpetual Contract DEX Track

The entry of “Maji Brother” Huang Licheng and the strong performance of ASTER provide investors with several important insights:

· The potential of emerging tracks is enormous: perpetual contract DEX is becoming a new hotspot in the crypto market, with trading volume and revenue growth rates far exceeding expectations.

· Flexible Position Management: Even seasoned investors are adopting more flexible position management strategies, including timely switching between long positions and short positions, as well as controlling leverage.

· Follow platform Token: The exchange's native Token often benefits directly from the increase in platform trading volume, creating a positive feedback loop.

· Beware of competition risks: As more players enter the market, intensified competition may lead to a decrease in transaction fees and user diversion.

As the competition between Aster and Hyperliquid continues to heat up, the development of the perpetual contract DEX sector will bring more opportunities and challenges to the market. Investors should closely follow the technological innovations, user growth, and changes in token economics in this field to seize potential investment opportunities.