Aster Testnet Launch, the dedicated Layer 1 for derivatives is officially debuting.
February 6 News, the decentralized derivatives project Aster officially launched its Layer 1 blockchain testnet, marking the team’s transition from application layer to underlying infrastructure development. This network is not designed for general-purpose scenarios but focuses on perpetual contract decentralized trading as its core goal, aiming to address the long-term bottlenecks in speed, stability, and capital efficiency of current on-chain derivatives trading.
Over the past year, Perp DEX trading volume has surpassed spot markets in multiple timeframes, becoming one of the most important traffic sources in DeFi. However, high-frequency and leveraged operations place higher demands on the underlying chain’s performance. Many public blockchains experience congestion, delays, and fee surges during market volatility, directly impacting liquidation safety and trading experience. Aster Layer 1 incorporates a “derivatives-first” design at the protocol level, attempting to provide stable support for this high-intensity scenario.
Unlike general-purpose blockchains, Aster’s architecture is optimized around derivatives trading, enhancing block production, transaction ordering, and execution paths, while supporting parallel processing to improve throughput. This allows the network to maintain low latency and fast finality even in highly volatile environments, which is especially critical for traders who frequently rebalance or close positions. Additionally, the fee structure emphasizes predictability to avoid cost uncertainties caused by network congestion.
The testnet provides a real-world environment for developers, validators, and traders. Developers can deploy smart contracts, test liquidation engines, and oracle mechanisms, while validators can assess network stability under different loads. Through feedback from real scenarios, Aster continues to optimize the system before mainnet launch.
In the highly competitive Layer 1 market, Aster chooses to differentiate through specialization rather than generalization. As the on-chain derivatives trading volume continues to grow, infrastructure built specifically for perpetual contracts may become a key pillar of the next phase of DeFi.