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

Comparison · By Stephan Kulik · Updated 2026-09-22

Aster vs GRVT (2026): 0% Maker vs Maker Rebate With KYC

Both venues run large USDT-margined market lists with live tokens, and both are among the largest perp venues by volume on public analytics, so the comparison is about what sits behind the numbers. Aster is a public order book on BNB Chain with 0% maker from the first trade and a points programme that its docs tie to an $ASTER airdrop. GRVT matches off-chain, settles on its own ZKsync-stack validium, keeps funds behind your signing key, verifies every account's identity, and has already distributed its airdrop: 280,000,000 tokens over two seasons, now vesting.

At a glance

✓ facts verified 2026-09-21 · each venue's official docs Every cell restates a claim on one of this site's pages: /compare/hyperliquid-vs-aster/ , /aster/fees/ , /grvt/ , /grvt/how-to-start/ , /grvt/fees/ , /airdrops/ .

Fees

Aster — Order-book maker/taker; three perp contract families (USDT, USD1, RWA) with different taker rates; Shield Mode and 1001x use their own fee rules. Base tier: 0.04% (USDT-margined) / 0.005% (USD1-margined) / 0.009% (RWA) taker, 0% maker. Taker numeric uses the USDT-margined family; USD1-margined trades at 0.005% — pick per family 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 2026-09-16 on /aster/fees/.

GRVT — Order-book maker/taker, nine tiers by 30-day volume; makers rebated from Level 1. Base tier: 0.045% taker, −0.0001% maker. Discounts: Tiers fall to −0.003% maker / 0.024% taker at $1 billion of 30-day volume; locking 2,500, 10,000 or 50,000 GRVT tokens in the Membership Program grants Level 2, 3 or 4. Multi-Asset Margin adds hourly interest on auto-borrowed USDT and a 0.1%–0.25% repayment fee on converted USDC; funding settles every 4 or 8 hours on most markets. Schedule verified 2026-09-21 on /grvt/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 twelve venues side by side and the execution-cost tool adds live slippage on top.

Markets they share

In this site's market join, snapshot 2026-09-22, Aster lists 565 perp markets and GRVT lists 186; 172 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.
• GRVT: GRVT — "an ERC-20 token on Ethereum L1 with a fixed, hard-capped supply", live since the 30 July 2026 TGE. Points: Active — Points programme (perp trading only) after a two-season airdrop; Seasons 1 and 2 carried 100,000,000 and 180,000,000 shares; the TGE article states the community airdrop "is fixed at 280,000,000 $GRVT", released in tranches over 12 months from 30 July 2026. Registration closed 27 July 2026; unregistered allocations were forfeited.. Docs: after multiplier elections "each share [is worth] approximately 0.6296 $GRVT". The rewards page lists a live points programme earned "from perpetual trading activity only"; what points earned after the token launch become is not stated on the pages read. The airdrop is complete and vesting; the row stays active only because the docs still describe a points programme with no stated conversion.

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

Access and transparency. No identity check, a book that lives on a public chain, and a maker fee of 0% on both perp families with no tier to unlock. Its points programme is live with a documented airdrop destination, which matters to traders farming allocation. The contract list is the largest this site tracks, and most of GRVT's crypto names are on it too.

Where GRVT wins

The non-crypto shelf and a settled token story. GRVT's instrument list reaches AAPL, TSLA, NVDA, SPY, QQQ, gold, silver, oil, natural gas and pre-IPO names, each on an order book and an RFQ venue, where Aster's equity coverage is thinner. Makers are rebated from Level 1, spot runs beside perps, and locking the token buys a fee tier: the airdrop is complete and the vesting schedule is published. Funding settles every 4 or 8 hours on most GRVT markets, which suits position holders who dislike hourly noise. The Hyperliquid vs GRVT page covers the custody model.

What this site could not verify

• Aster: US access rules — not verified either way.
• 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.
• GRVT: Insurance fund size, the interest rate on auto-borrowed USDT, and the liquidation fee rate — none published on the pages read on 2026-09-21.
• GRVT: Whether the volume tier or the membership tier applies when both qualify — not stated.
• GRVT: MNT: listed as delisted in the help centre but still active with open interest on the API — excluded from this site's coverage pending a re-check.

Which to pick

For a public book, no KYC and a live points-to-airdrop path, Aster. For stock, ETF, commodity and pre-IPO perps with a maker rebate, a token whose use is already defined, and the willingness to verify your identity and accept an off-chain book, full liquidation and an insurance fund of unpublished size, GRVT. Aster's US access is unverified either way; GRVT bars the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada by name. The Aster review and the GRVT review carry the detail behind each cell.

Related comparisons

• Aster vs dYdX
• Aster vs edgeX
• Aster vs Paradex
• Aster vs Extended
• Aster vs Pacifica
• Aster vs GMX
• Aster vs Variational
• Hyperliquid vs Aster
• Hyperliquid vs GRVT

FAQ

Which has the better maker rate?

GRVT's Level 1 pays −0.0001%, so on paper it is the only rebate of the two; Aster's is 0%. The gap is a hundredth of a basis point, far smaller than the taker difference on any other pair on this site.

Which token is further along?

GRVT's: the airdrop was distributed at the 30 July 2026 launch and vests over 12 months, and membership tiers give the token a published use. Aster's token is live too, but its Stage 6 points still accrue toward an allocation whose ratio is unpublished.

Do I need KYC on either?

On GRVT, yes, before the account is registered. On Aster, no identity step appears in the docs this site verified; its US access rules were not established either way.