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Comparison · By Stephan Kulik · Updated 2026-10-07

Aster vs edgeX (2026): Published vs App-Only Fees

Both are order-book perp DEXs with live tokens and large market lists, and that is where the symmetry ends. Aster publishes its fee schedule, its funding intervals through the API, and a points programme with a documented airdrop link. edgeX's documentation, on the verification date, carried no fee schedule and no points programme; its rates are visible only after sign-in. This page compares what both publish and says plainly where one does not.

Verdict

Aster can be priced before you deposit; edgeX cannot. Aster's 0% maker and published taker rates set a number; edgeX sets none, so no honest comparison of cost exists. On tokens, both are live: $ASTER with a published airdrop category and an active Stage 6, EDGE with an airdrop already executed and a buyback-burn but no current programme documented. Pick Aster if verifiable cost or an active points path matters; treat edgeX as a venue you must open to price.

At a glance

Aster versus edgeX, compared across key dimensions
	Aster	edgeX
Architecture	Aster Chain L1 · order book	Order book · settles to Ethereum
Custody	Self-custody	Self-custody (per docs)
KYC	None	Not stated
Base perp fees	0.04% (crypto) / 0.1% (Group B) / 0.0125% (RWA) / 0% t/m	Not published / Not published t/m
Funding	8h default; 1h, 2h, 4h or 8h per symbol via the API	Hourly per docs; interval set per market
Token	$ASTER · live (TGE claim window 17 Sep – 17 Oct 2025)	EDGE · live
Points programme	Active · Aster Convergence: Stage 6	None documented
Operating entity / access	US, Canada, UK among 11 barred (Terms)	US and Ontario barred (app Terms)

facts verified 2026-09-09 · each venue's official docs Every cell restates a claim on one of this site's pages: /compare/hyperliquid-vs-aster/ , /aster/fees/ , /eu/aster/ , /edgex/ , /edgex/fees/ , /airdrops/ .

Fees

Aster — Order-book maker/taker; 0% maker on every perp category, taker by category: Crypto General (USDT- or USD1-quoted) 0.04%, Group B 0.1%, RWA 0.0125%; Shield Mode and 1001x use their own fee rules. Base tier: 0.04% (crypto) / 0.1% (Group B) / 0.0125% (RWA) taker, 0% maker. Taker numeric uses Crypto General pairs (USDT- or USD1-quoted); RWA pairs trade at 0.0125% and Group B pairs at 0.1% — pick per category when calculating. Discounts: 5% off when fees are paid in ASTER; spot VIP grid 4.0→2.3 bps taker by 14-day volume and ASTER held; market-maker rebates to −0.5 bps; referral rebate up to 10% (referrer-configured split, not guaranteed). 0% maker means maker-heavy flow pays nothing — and generates no referral commission. Schedule verified 2026-09-29 on /aster/fees/.

edgeX — Order-book with daily 30-day volume tiers. Base tier: Not published taker, Not published maker. edgeX's docs publish no fee schedule — tier rates are visible only inside the app. Its public metadata API lists a defaultTakerFeeRate of 0.00045 and defaultMakerFeeRate of 0.0004 on every contract, but the docs never define "default", so we do not calculate with it. Discounts: Not published. The schedule being app-only means you cannot compare edgeX on price before signing up. We do not estimate it. Schedule verified 2026-09-28 on /edgex/fees/.

Base-tier rates answer one narrow question — what a small taker order costs on day one. Your maker/taker mix, volume tier and holding period decide the real number; the fee comparison lays all 20 venues side by side and the execution-cost tool adds live slippage on top.

Markets they share

In this site's market join, snapshot 2026-10-07, Aster lists 573 perp markets and edgeX lists 181; 139 appear on both. The market index shows every asset with the venues that list it and each venue's published leverage, and the join is refreshed weekly by a fail-closed pipeline. Breadth is not depth: a listing says nothing about how much size a book absorbs, which the execution-cost tool measures live where a venue publishes its order book.

Token and points

Aster: $ASTER · live (TGE claim window 17 Sep – 17 Oct 2025). Points: Active — Aster Convergence: Stage 6; Calculated weekly; five point categories × team boost, plus two-level referral points; weightings undisclosed. Docs: points "accumulate toward your $ASTER airdrop share at the conclusion of Stage 6". Conversion ratio, Stage 6’s share and the end date are not published.
edgeX: EDGE · live. Points: None documented . No points programme is described in the documentation read (50 pages). The EDGE token page allocates 5% of supply to a "Pre TGE Season" and 25% to a genesis distribution; the tokenomics page records that EDGE was airdropped to eligible users and is bought back and burned from revenue. edgeX’s named docs host did not resolve on the verification date; the GitBook the site has always used for edgeX (linked from edgeX’s own official-links page) was read instead. The app advertised a “TradFi Trading Season” fee-rebate promotion and a “Trade to EARN” page on 2026-09-09; neither is a points programme described in the docs.

Both rows are restated from the points & airdrop tracker, which is re-read against each venue's docs on a 45-day cadence and never prices a point.

Where Aster wins

Transparency and the points path. The fee grid, the per-symbol funding intervals and the Stage 6 mechanics are all on docs pages this site has read and dated, and the tokenomics publish a 53.5% Airdrop category even though Stage 6's share is not stated. Aster also lists more perp markets than edgeX in this site's join.

Where edgeX wins

A verified product detail and a completed distribution. edgeX's docs describe sub-accounts that aggregate into one fee tier, recorded on this site's Hyperliquid vs edgeX page; their gas-cover line names only V1, frozen since 2026-08-14 per L2BEAT (checked 2026-10-07). Its EDGE token has already been airdropped to eligible users and is bought back and burned from revenue, so the token side is settled rather than pending. None of that tells you what a trade costs.

What this site could not verify

Aster: Audits of the perpetuals trading engine — the published reports cover vault, earn and yield-token contracts.
Aster: Liquidity depth — not benchmarked by this site.
Aster: The points-to-token ratio, Stage 6’s share of the airdrop allocation, and the stage’s end date — unpublished.
edgeX: The fee schedule — edgeX does not publish rates, so nothing here estimates them.
edgeX: KYC — the docs make no statement either way.
edgeX: Leverage caps — a per-market setting the docs give by formula only.
edgeX: The operator-independent withdrawal path — documented, not tested by this site.

Which to pick

If you want to know your cost before funding an account, or you want a running points programme with a documented airdrop link, Aster. If you already trade on edgeX and can see its schedule, compare it against Aster's published rates yourself; this site will not estimate an unpublished one. The Aster review and the edgeX review carry the full mechanics of each venue.

Related comparisons

FAQ

Why is there no edgeX fee figure?

Because edgeX does not publish one. Its rates are shown inside the app after sign-in, and a number this site has not read on an official page does not get printed.

Does edgeX still have a points programme?

Not in the documentation read on the verification date. Its token page records a historical "Pre TGE Season" as an allocation label only, and EDGE has already been distributed.

Is Aster's airdrop guaranteed?

Its docs commit Stage 6 points to an $ASTER airdrop share, but the conversion ratio, Stage 6's share of the allocation and the end date are unpublished. The tracker keeps the row dated and never prices a point.

Open Aster →

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