⚠︎ Risk warning: leveraged derivatives on unregulated platforms — you can lose everything you deposit. Not investment advice.
Aster vs Nado (2026): Own-Chain Book vs Unified Margin
Both run a public order book with stock and FX perps beside crypto. Aster matches on its own chain, Aster Chain, with privacy on by default. Nado matches in an off-chain sequencer and settles on Ink, netting spot, perps and money-market borrowing in one unified margin account.
Verdict
Aster for makers and breadth; Nado for takers and cross-product margin. Aster charges 0% maker on every perp category and 0.04% taker on crypto. Nado charges 0.035% taker and 0.01% maker at VIP 0, and lets spot holdings and borrowing offset perp risk. Aster's token is live; Nado names none. Nado's docs publish no audits.
At a glance
| Aster | Nado | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Aster Chain L1 · order book | Off-chain sequencer + on-chain clearinghouse · Ink L2 |
| Custody | Self-custody | On-chain contracts on Ink; the sequencer "holds no custody" |
| KYC | None | No identity step for wallet or social login; the card route via Fun.xyz may ask for basic KYC |
| Base perp fees | 0.04% (crypto) / 0.1% (Group B) / 0.0125% (RWA) / 0% t/m | 0.035% → 0.015% (by tier) / 0.01% → −0.008% (by tier) t/m WINNER |
| Funding | 8h default; 1h, 2h, 4h or 8h per symbol via the API | Hourly · capped at ±2% per day |
| Token | $ASTER · live (TGE claim window 17 Sep – 17 Oct 2025) WINNER | None named in the docs |
| Points programme | Active · Aster Convergence: Stage 6 | Active · Nado Points — Season 2 (from 21 May 2026) |
| Operating entity / access | US, Canada, UK among 11 barred (Terms) | Spira Arc Inc. (Panama); restricts US, Canada, Panama |
facts verified · 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/ , /nado/ , /nado/how-to-start/ , /nado/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/.
Nado — Order-book maker/taker (off-chain sequencer, on-chain clearinghouse on Ink); seven VIP tiers on 30-day spot + perp volume. Base tier: 0.035% → 0.015% (by tier) taker, 0.01% → −0.008% (by tier) maker. Numerics are VIP 0 ($0 of 30-day volume), read from the fee-schedule image; the public gateway API carries the same 0.00035 / 0.0001 on 76 of 82 perps. FX perps use a lower schedule from 0.70 bps taker / 0.20 bps maker. Discounts: VIP tiers on 30-day volume reach 1.5 bps taker and a −0.8 bp maker rebate at $1B; referral codes with a kickback return part of fees. Flat sequencer fees apply (1 USDT0 per withdrawal, 1 USDT0 per liquidation); the fees page's worked example still calls the top tier "$5B+", superseded by the Season 2 schedule. Schedule verified 2026-09-30 on /nado/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 2026-10-05, Aster lists 571 perp markets and Nado lists 75; 68 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.
- Nado: None named in the docs. Points: Active — Nado Points — Season 2 (from 21 May 2026); Weekly pool scales with protocol volume from a 300K-point floor to a 950K-point cap; your share depends on trading activity "with adjustments for fee tier and toxicity". Points also come from NLP deposits and referrals. Season 1 balances, Trader Tier history and NFT multipliers carry over.. Docs: points "are non-transferable, cannot be traded, and are reflected directly within the Nado app". No token and no conversion are named. Season 2 cut the Season 1 bonus pool from 8,000,000 to 2,000,000 points, including 4,000,000 reserved for trading competitions set to 0 — the programme can change after points are earned.
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
Maker pricing and the shelf. Aster's makers pay 0% on every perp category, and its market list is far longer. $ASTER is live and its Stage 6 points are tied by its docs to an airdrop. Privacy is on by default on Aster Chain.
Where Nado wins
A lower base taker rate and one netted account. Nado's 0.035% VIP 0 taker rate sits under Aster's 0.04%, and its unified margin nets spot, perps and borrowing, with tokenized stocks accepted as collateral. See the Nado fees page for the tiers.
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.
- Nado: Audits — the docs publish no audit or security page.
- Nado: Maximum leverage — "up to 20x" on one page, 40x for FX on another; the API publishes risk weights, not a cap.
- Nado: What points convert to — no token or conversion is named.
Which to pick
For resting orders and the widest market list, Aster. For taking liquidity a little cheaper and netting spot, perps and borrowing, after accepting unpublished audits, Nado. Both restrict the United States and Canada among others. The Aster review and the Nado review carry the detail.
Related comparisons
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- Aster vs ApeX Omni
- Aster vs SoDEX
- Aster vs Veranta
- Aster vs Vest Markets
- Aster vs Derive
- Hyperliquid vs Aster
- Hyperliquid vs Nado
FAQ
Which is cheaper?
For makers, Aster at 0%. For takers at the base tier, Nado at 0.035% against Aster's 0.04%.
Do I need KYC on either?
Neither venue's wallet onboarding asks for identity documents. Nado's card route runs through Fun.xyz, which may ask for basic KYC.
Do they list the same markets?
The shared-markets count above comes from this site's coverage snapshot, which reads both venues' public market lists.
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