Aster reimburses users after XPL perpetual glitch sends price to $4

BNB Chain derivatives decentralized exchange (DEX) Aster completed reimbursements to traders hurt by a glitch in its Plasma (XPL) perpetual market that briefly drove prices above market levels. 

According to Abhishek Pawa, the CEO of Web3 agency AP Collective, the issue stemmed from a misconfigured index hard-coded at $1. With the mark price cap lifted before the fix, XPL futures on Aster spiked to nearly $4 while other venues remained $1.30. 

The sudden Friday price discrepancy triggered unexpected liquidations and abnormal fee charges, causing losses to users. However, the platform moved quickly, assuring its users that all funds were safe and promising to compensate them for any losses. 

Just hours later, the DEX said the reimbursements for the incident had been fully distributed to their accounts. Shortly after, Aster deployed another round of compensation, including trading and liquidation fees. 

Aster sends perps trading to a daily record of $100 billion volume

Meanwhile, Aster has sustained its rapid growth this week, driving overall perpetual DEX volumes to $104 billion on Friday, marking a fourth straight day of record daily highs. 

DefiLlama showed that Aster recorded $46 billion in volume on Friday, dwarfing its competitors Lighter and Hyperliquid, which both had strong performances of nearly $19 billion and $17 billion, respectively. 

Aster’s volume surge started on Wednesday, surpassing its strongest competitor, Hyperliquid, with a trading volume of nearly $25 billion. At the time of writing, CoinGlass showed that Aster’s open interest was at $1.15 billion.  

While Aster’s metrics kept going up, community members voiced concerns over potential risks for traders. 

One community member expressed skepticism over the trading volume on Aster, bringing up airdrop incentives for using the platform. Another user urged traders to cash out on their trades, saying that it’s easy to lose money at this stage. 

Related: Crypto bill, stablecoins, new ETPs to drive Q4 crypto returns: Analysts

What is the XPL token? 

XPL is the native token of Plasma, a layer-1 network optimized for stablecoins. The network offers zero-fee Tether (USDT) transfers and EVM compatibility for smart contracts and is backed by venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. 

The network has recently gained traction within the DeFi ecosystem. On Friday, Ethena’s USDe lending markets on Aave via Plasma reached their initial $1 billion supply caps within hours of launching, signaling strong demand for the synthetic dollar stablecoin on Plasma.