Aster Surges Over 10% on Buyback-and-Burn Upgrade Before Fading

Here’s a paraphrased version in a clean crypto-market news style:

ASTER experienced sharp two-way volatility as bullish protocol-specific developments collided with a more hawkish Federal Reserve stance and broader market weakness.

The native token of decentralized perpetuals exchange Aster surged more than 10% on Wednesday, reaching 80 cents—its highest level since January—before reversing gains, according to CoinDesk data. The initial rally followed the protocol’s announcement of a major tokenomics overhaul that allocates 99% of daily platform fees toward an automated buyback program, effectively using protocol revenue to repurchase its own token supply.

Under the mechanism, tokens acquired through buybacks are redistributed as rewards to veASTER holders. veASTER is a non-transferable governance token obtained by locking ASTER, granting users voting rights, fee revenue exposure, and trading discounts on the Aster DEX.

Each buyback is paired with an equivalent token burn from the protocol’s reserve, gradually reducing supply through bi-weekly reductions. The program will continue until total supply reaches 3 billion tokens, down from the current 7.82 billion.

The upgrade represents a shift away from Aster’s previous linear vesting model, which released tokens into circulation regardless of demand and was phased out earlier this year in January 2026.

According to the protocol, the new design ties token value more directly to platform activity, with all distributions executed on-chain and without discretionary reserve allocations.

Despite the strong initial reaction, the rally quickly faded as a hawkish Federal Reserve triggered broader risk-off sentiment, strengthening the U.S. dollar and pressuring crypto assets.

At the time of writing, ASTER was trading near 68 cents, down about 5% on the day after giving back earlier gains.