⚠︎ Risk warning: leveraged derivatives on unregulated platforms — you can lose everything you deposit. Not investment advice.

Hands-on · By Stephan Kulik · Updated 2026-07-23

The Aster Screen, Explained

Definitions re-verified against Aster's official docs on 2026-10-07. Screenshots are from our own account, taken 2026-07-23 — the numbers in them were live then and will differ now.

Aster packs the most into one interface of any venue we cover: an order-book perps exchange, a spot market, prediction markets, copy-trading vaults, and its own blockchain — all under one nav bar. That breadth is powerful and genuinely overwhelming for a newbie, so this page walks it piece by piece, using screenshots from our own account. New to Aster? Start with the how-to-start guide; new to perps, read the perpetuals explainer first. We did the same tour for Hyperliquid, dYdX, and GMX.

The Trade Screen at a Glance

This is the Pro futures view — order book on the right, chart in the middle, order panel on the far right, positions along the bottom. The header shows Mark and Index prices and, notably, Funding (8h) / Countdown — per Aster's docs, funding runs on a default 8-hour interval and is peer-to-peer: "Aster does not charge or receive funding — it is a peer-to-peer transfer."

The Order Panel: A Lot of Order Types

Aster documents more order types than most venues. Beyond Market (immediate) and Limit (your price or better), the full set includes:

• Stop Limit / Stop Market — trigger orders that place a limit or market order once a stop price is hit.
• Trailing Stop — a stop that "follows the market as it moves in your favor" and fires if price reverses by a set percentage.
• Scaled Order — "places multiple limit orders simultaneously across a defined price range," laddering your size.
• TWAP — splits a large order into timed sub-orders to average the price over a period.
• Post Only — guarantees your order rests as a maker (rejected if it would match immediately).
• Chase Order — now documented: a limit order that re-prices every second to follow the best bid or ask (or a fixed gap behind it) and cancels itself past a maximum chase difference you set; "All chase orders are placed as post-only, so every fill is a maker fill at Aster's 0 maker fee." Our Aster order types page has the detail.

The checkboxes matter too: TP/SL attaches take-profit and stop-loss exit levels; Reduce-Only, per the docs, "guarantees that your order will never open or increase a position — it can only reduce or fully close" (worth using on exits); and Hidden Order "allows traders to place a limit order without revealing any information about its size or presence to the public order book" — a stealth/iceberg order, not a separate venue. The BBO button on the price field "places a limit order at the best bid or ask price."

Margin Mode, Leverage, and Asset Mode

Clicking the Cross label opens the margin-mode dialog — per the docs, cross margin "is shared across all open positions," while isolated margin "is applied to a single position only." Clicking the leverage pill (the "20×") opens a slider. The docs say "Each asset has its own maximum leverage limit"; when we captured the slider in July, BTCUSDT topped out at 200x on the Pro order book (some symbols, like HYPE, went higher), and the interface warned that "selecting higher leverage increases your chances of liquidation." Treat those caps as hazard signs, not targets.

Aster also has an Asset Mode setting most venues don't: Single-Asset (your margin is the pair's settlement currency, PnL offsets only within the same currency) versus Multi-Asset (different margin assets can offset each other's PnL). Single-Asset is the simpler mental model for a beginner — one collateral currency, one clear risk picture.

USDT vs USD1 Perps: Two Families

Aster lists perps in USDT and USD1 pairs, and which category a market falls in sets your fee. Per the fee schedule: crypto pairs are 0% maker / 0.04% taker in either quote, RWA pairs 0% maker / 0.0125% taker, and a Group B list 0.1% taker. USD1 is a separate stablecoin Aster accepts as margin; it no longer carries a lower crypto taker rate than USDT. Paying fees in the ASTER token adds a further 5% discount. Our Aster fees breakdown has the full picture; the maker-heavy trader pays nothing either way.

The Account Equity Panel

Bottom-right of the trade screen tracks your account: Account Equity, Spot Total Value, Perp Total Value, and Perpetuals Unrealized Pnl up top, then Account Margin Ratio and Account Maintenance Margin below. The margin ratio is the one to watch — per Aster's docs, liquidation comes "when the risk ratio hits 100%", and they recommend keeping your margin ratio below 80%. Keep it low.

Spot Trading

Switch the pair from "Perp" to "Spot" and the same Pro layout becomes a spot exchange — buy or sell the actual token rather than a leveraged contract. Note the ASTER 5% Off toggle in the order panel: paying fees in the ASTER token discounts them. Spot is the lower-risk corner of Aster (no leverage, no liquidation) — see our perp DEX guide for the spot-vs-perps distinction.

Predictions: Aster's Prediction Markets

The Predictions tab is a genuinely different product: Aster's prediction market, "allowing users to trade on the outcome of future events". You buy shares priced between 0.0001 and 0.9999 USDT that represent an implied probability, and at settlement winning shares pay $1, losing shares $0. There are Price Markets (will an index be above/below a target at a set time — like the "BTC UP/DOWN 5M" shown) and Event Markets (Yes/No real-world outcomes). Per the docs, a "Settlement fee of 0.05% applies to winning shares only." It's closer to a prediction exchange than to perps, and the short-duration "5M" markets are effectively fast binary bets — treat them with that seriousness.

The "More" Menu — and the 1001x Honesty Note

The More menu is where the rest of Aster lives: Grid Trade (automated grid strategies), Earn, an API, a Leaderboard, and 1001x. That last one deserves a clear warning, because it's easy to misread. 1001x is a separate product — Aster's "Simple" / Degen mode — not this Pro order-book interface. The Pro futures screen this page describes capped BTCUSDT at 200x when we captured it; the 1001x figure applies only to that distinct high-leverage product on select pairs. Do not assume the screen you're on offers 1001x. And 1001x leverage means a fraction of a percent move against you is a total loss — it's about the most dangerous thing in retail crypto. We mention it factually and steer well clear of encouraging it. (The menu also links an APX→ASTER token exchange, a legacy conversion from Aster's earlier APX incarnation.) Aster has since added another separate product, Shield Mode, with its own fee and liquidation rules; our Aster Shield Mode page covers it.

Vaults, Aster Chain, and Rewards

Three more nav items round out the platform, each covered honestly:

• Vaults — copy-trading, not a liquidity pool. Per the docs, vaults "allow experienced traders to manage capital on behalf of investors"; you deposit and "receive a proportional ownership share," and "all profits and losses generated by the Vault are shared proportionally." That means you inherit the manager's results — wins and drawdowns alike — with a lock-up period and a profit share the manager sets between 0% and 100%, per the docs. It's delegated trading, framed as such in our earning guide.
• Aster Chain — Aster's own blockchain. Per the docs, "a high-performance, privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for derivatives trading," using ZK-encrypted orders and stealth addresses. A distinctive piece of infrastructure, still early.
• Rewards — the airdrop machine. Per the Stage 6 docs, its points are "Aster Stage 6 Airdrop points for trading on Aster Perpetual and Spot", calculated in weekly epochs. The detailed points mechanics and airdrop status are on our Aster points page.

Portfolio and Fee Tiers

The Portfolio page is your account overview — value, daily PnL, and your VIP fee tier (the screenshot shows VIP 1: 0.04% taker on crypto). Fee tiers improve with volume, updated daily. It also surfaces a "Stock" fee row — Aster lists some equity-style markets alongside crypto perps.

The Stardust Points Page

Under Rewards, the Stardust points page showed in July how points accrue — split across Trade, Position, Profit, Loss, Liquidation, and Referral categories, toward the $ASTER airdrop. Stage 6's published formula now combines trading, position and Aster-asset points, among others. The honest framing lives on our Aster points explainer and in the earning guide: points are a promise of unknown value, and churning volume purely to farm them can cost more in fees than the allocation is worth. Trade what you'd trade anyway; treat points as a rebate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Aster trade screen let me use 1001x leverage?

No — not the Pro order-book interface, which capped BTCUSDT at 200x when we captured it. The "1001x" in the More menu is a separate Simple/Degen-mode product on select pairs. And 1001x is extraordinarily dangerous: a tiny adverse move wipes the position. We flag it factually and don't recommend it.

What's the difference between USDT and USD1 perps?

They're two margin stablecoins, not two fee schedules: USD1-quoted BTC, ETH and SOL pay the same 0.04% taker as USDT pairs, and RWA pairs pay 0.0125% in either quote, all at 0% maker. See our fees page.

Is an Aster Vault a safe way to earn?

A vault is copy-trading: a manager trades your deposited capital and you share the results — including losses — minus a performance fee, with a lock-up. It's delegated directional trading, not a fixed yield. Understand the manager and the risk before depositing.

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This page contains affiliate links. Screenshots are of our own account and carry no compensation from Aster; values shown were live on the capture date and change constantly. See our methodology.