The market should’ve pumped with the Fed cuts.

Instead, crypto crashed. There are a thousand explanations. But here’s a funny theory:

The SEC and Finra had reached out to >200 crypto firms over DAT insider trading suspicions.

So maybe insiders insider-traded the insider trading inquiry.

I wouldn’t be surprised if crypto forgot that insider trading is, uh, still illegal.

Here’s what we got today:

• Aster vs HyperLiquid. How did the impossible happen?
• $FLUID price action. And upcoming catalysts for the project.
• Around the web. Plasma launched mainnet, Jito launched BAM early mainnet, Cloudflare launched NET Dollar, and more.

Here’s your Edge 🗡️!

Hot project

Rise of $ASTER: CZ’s New Baby

The undisputed king of perp dexes may be in trouble.

Just two months before, it seemed like flipping HyperLiquid was becoming impossible. HyperLiquid was in a league of its own: it was being compared to centralized exchanges, not other Perp Dexes due to its size.

But a new challenger as arrived. Within a few days of launching, the new protocol Aster has flipped HyperLiquid in both volume and revenue.

While HyperLiquid did $13B in volume, Aster almost did 3x its volume ($37B). Similarly, HL only did​ ~$20M in fees​ last week. Aster did​ ~$54M​ in fees.

This was reflected in the​ price action​ as well. On the 19th, $ASTER MC was around $900M. By 24th, it pumped to ~$4B. Although it has now gone back to ~$3B.

What is Aster? It’s a new perp exchange promoted by CZ, the founder of the #1 crypto exchange.

It only uses onchain for settlement. The order-matching is done offchain. In other words, it’s a trusted CEX larping as a DEX perp.

APX Finance and Astherus merged in late 2024 to create Aster. It​ officially​ launched in March 2025. But it really took off when they launched $ASTER last week.

What Makes Aster Different?

One thing that differentiates Aster is hidden orders. Transparent orders make traders vulnerable to MEV and being hunted onchain. So privacy is a big deal.

But since they use an offchain matching engine, it’s pretty easy to do. So it’s not an impressive technical achievement.

In the future, they’ll be releasing Aster Chain, a zk-powered L1 with privacy. But we don’t have any timeline for this.

I don’t think privacy is the most important reason for Aster’s success.

The real reason is Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ. He has a massive aura. As founder of Binance, he’s credited with the public destruction of FTX, its biggest competitor. And he’s been to jail for a literal crime as well.

So when CZ promotes $ASTER, people expect him to “crime it up”. And it’s enough to create the reflexive loop that pumps $ASTER.

Airdrop incentives are another piece of the puzzle.

$ASTER launch has been insanely successful. There are more airdrops to come. Many people got a lot of money with the initial airdrop, and they’re using it to trade to get more airdrop.

This has kick-started a flywheel: higher token price > higher airdrop value > higher revenue/fees > higher token price.

This is a good place to list Aster’s criticisms.

Why’s HyperLiquid still the king?

#1. Open Interest.

The volume on Aster is gamed. People are willing to pay fees to boost the volume cuz they expect airdrop incentives to be higher than fees. So volume is misleading.

Faking Open Interest (OI) is much more expensive.

As you can see, HyperLiquid has a >$10B lead in Open Interest. So HyperLiquid is still the king of perps.

#2. Product.

On the product side, Aster is nowhere near HyperLiquid.

• HyperLiquid has notably better UX.
• Aster only has 42 pairs, compared to 180 pairs of HL.
• HL actually runs onchain. Aster doesn’t. People can’t trust offchain perp apps.

HyperLiquid is lindy. It has built trust through execution. The Aster team doesn’t have that.

You could say Aster would catch up, but disruption usually needs 10x improvement. Aster doesn’t have 10x improvement, at least not yet.

#3. Network effects

HyperLiquid allows other projects to earn a commission by building front-ends to HyperLiquid. Major wallets like Phantom and Rabby have integrated HL into their platform.

Aster doesn’t have anything similar.

People who say Aster is gonna flip HyperLiquid are just shilling their bags. They’re doing it to raise the $ASTER target price.

Ultimately, Aster isn’t a legitimate HL competitor yet. Right now, it’s a CZ-attention play.

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Market

$FLUID: Just Hype or Undervalued Gem?

That’s a whopping ~53.8% pump ($5.2 to $8) in 4 hours.

It might look like a memecoin chart, but it isn’t. It’s one of my favorite DeFi projects: Fluid.

What’s it? It’s an innovative project that integrates money markets and DEX to create new primitives like smart collateral and smart debt. It allows them to provide the best rates in the industry. We’ve covered the mechanics in​ detail before​.

Fluid has been crushing it lately. Let’s look at some numbers.

• It’s #1 among lending DAOs for 30-day active loan growth (+48%).
• Fluid gives a really high​ Lending rate​ for stablecoin depositors. ~10% on $USDC on Arbitrum, ~12% on $GHO on Base, and more.
• On the chains, Fluid DEX is live; it dominates. Yesterday, it did​ 62.2%of volume​ on Arbitrum and 31.3% of volume on Ethereum.
• It has become the best DEX for stablecoin swaps. On Ethereum,​ ~50% of USDC-USDT​ swaps are facilitated by Fluid.

But these still don’t explain the memecoin-like pump of >50% in 4 hours.

Why the pump? $FLUID entered new markets

$FLUID isn’t listed on top exchanges like Coinbase or Binance. So most people weren’t able to buy it.

South Korea’s leading CEX is Upbit. Around September 24, 10:30 am UTC, $FLUID started trading on Upbit. So the token immediately got access to a massive new market.

There was an immediate effect. Within hours,​ over $34.5 million​ was traded, a 1,600% spike. Even in the last 24 hours, >$21.5M was traded

Around the same time, Binance launched perp contracts for $FLUID as well. This allowed degens to speculate on $FLUID as well.

$FLUID’s massive run-up can be attributed to the above two factors that created massive demand in the short term.

The slide back $5.6 can be explained as mean reversion within the context of a larger market crash. $BTC has gone below $110k. Similarly, ETH also lost $4k resistance.

But these aren’t bad news for $FLUID.

For starters, since $FLUID still isn’t listed on Coinbase and Binance. With the Upbit listing, the probability for those listings just increased. And they are major catalysts to look forward to.

But there are many other catalysts that aren’t priced in yet.

#1. Upcoming buybacks.

Fluid is expected to launch its​ buybacks​ in October.

They’ll be using a​ dynamic model​. When FDV is <$500M, 100% of the revenue will be used buyback. As FDV increases, the % of revenue will decrease.

Right now, $FLUID FDV is <$584. So there’s very little downside risk for $FLUID.

#2. JupLend launch.

Fluid is an EVM project. Its programming language is different from the Solana VM.

So they’ve partnered with Jupiter, a leading brand on Solana that’s building a DeFi superapp. Fluid’s tech was used to build JupLend.

It has been off to a​ great start​. It has attracted >$1.32B in deposits, and people have already borrowed $588M. A % of JupLend revenue will go to $FLUID.

#3. Plasma launch

Fluid has an​ official partnership​ with Fluid. DeFi activities like swapping and lending on Fluid are​ incentivized​ by the Plasma chain.

Plasma is a chain focused on stablecoins. With Fluid’s advantages in facilitating stablecoin swaps, lending, and borrowing, we can expect Fluid to continue its dominance.

It has already become the second-largest project on Plasma by TVL ($217M).

There are still more catalysts.

• Fluid DEX v2 is coming soon.
• DATs are buying FLUID

The most successful tokens of this cycle are $HYPE & $PUMP. Both of them have three things in common: product-market fit, sustainable revenue, and token buybacks.

With upcoming buybacks, $FLUID will soon join the club.

🚀 DeFi Catalysts

Plasma has launched its ​mainnet​. It’s a hot new L1 chain backed by Tether that focuses on the stablecoin niche. It already has >$2.2B in TVL.

Solana is working with ​Kazakhstan​. Its national bank has launched the first tenge-backed KZTE stablecoin on Solana.

Yield Basis is an AMM without ​Impermanent Loss​. They’ve launched pools for cbBTC, WBTC, and tBTC with a $1M cap per pool.

Jito has launched the Block Assembly Marketplace ​(BAM) early mainnet​. It’s a new primitive that’ll allow devs to define custom ordering logic.

Ethena has expanded USDe and sUSDe to ​Avalanche​. Eligible DeFi interactions on Avax will qualify for AVAX rewards & Ethena Points.

Pendle has officially launched ​Boros​ in full. It allows users to trade funding rates on exchanges. It’s a brand new primitive.

Token Works introduced ​NFTStrategy​. It creates a liquid token for NFT collections and creates markets for collections.

LayerZero introduced ​Fast Swaps​. It’s introduced via Stargate, its sister project that was recently acquired by $ZRO.

Tokemak has rebranded to ​Auto Finance​. It aims to unify all products under one cohesive identity.

Native Markets has issued ​USDH​ on HyperLiquid. They had won the right to do so in a high-profile selection process.

📰 Industry News

Tether is raising $25 billion at ​$500 billion​ valuation. That’s values Tether at the same market cap as Ethereum.

Ethereum Foundation has created a decentralized AI ​(dAI) team​ to position Ethereum as the coordination layer for AI and the machine economy.

SharpLink Gaming, a leading ETH DAT, said it will ​tokenize​ its Nasdaq-listed SBET shares on Ethereum in partnership with SuperState.

Coinbase and Cloudflare announced the ​x402 Foundation​ to establish x402 as the universal standard for AI-driven payments.

Cloudflare introduced NET Dollar, a new U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin for the agentic web.

Bitcoin community is having an intense debate. OG Bitcoin Core developer and Knots maintainer Luke Dashjr was reportedly planning a ​hard fork​ that would’ve added censorship to the chain.

🐦‍⬛ X Hits

1. List of big upcoming ​launches​.
2. ​Jito thesis​ from Kairos Research.
3. Takeaways from ​trading $XPL​ TGE.
4. Blockchain L1s, L2s, & ​security laws​.
5. Market map of the ​prediction market​ sector.

😂 Meme

Until next time,

Edgy