Past incident: funding-index outage and chain rollback (resolved) — 2026-01-19. On 2026-01-19 a database-maintenance race condition zeroed Paradex’s funding indices, briefly pricing BTC at $0 and triggering mass liquidations; the site was offline for roughly six hours. Paradex rolled the chain back to block 1,604,710 and refunded about $650,000 to roughly 200 affected accounts. The venue has operated normally since — noted here as resolved context for anyone weighing its reliability, not a current outage. ( Paradex post-mortem )

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

Comparison · By · Updated 2026-10-07

Aster vs Paradex (2026): 0% Maker vs Zero-Fee Retail

Both venues run live tokens, weekly points programmes and headline fees near zero, and each puts its asterisk in a different place. Aster's zero is for makers on every perp category, with published taker rates. Paradex's zero is for retail accounts on both sides, with a published Pro ladder for API flow. Both hide positions by default: Aster through Account Privacy on its own L1, Aster Chain, and Paradex on a Starknet appchain, which also adds options to perps and spot.

Verdict

Paradex is free for retail takers; Aster is free for every maker. A retail taker pays nothing on Paradex and a published rate on Aster. A maker pays nothing on either, but Aster's zero has no size ceiling and Paradex's applies only to retail. On points, Aster's Stage 6 is the one with a documented airdrop link; Paradex's XP Season 3 has a published weekly pool and no conversion statement. Both tokens are live with real utility.

At a glance

Aster versus Paradex, compared across key dimensions
Aster Paradex
Architecture Aster Chain L1 · order book Starknet appchain
Custody Self-custody Self-custody (Starknet)
KYC None None in Terms
Base perp fees 0.04% (crypto) / 0.1% (Group B) / 0.0125% (RWA) / 0% t/m 0% (retail) / 0.045% → 0.035% (Pro, by 14-day volume) / 0% (retail) / 0.003% (Pro) t/m WINNER
Token $ASTER · live (TGE claim window 17 Sep – 17 Oct 2025) $DIME · live (Pro taker fees payable in DIME at a flat 40% discount; fee-revenue buybacks)
Points programme Active · Aster Convergence: Stage 6 Active · XP Season 3
Operating entity / access US, Canada, UK among 11 barred (Terms) US + Canada restricted

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/ , /compare/hyperliquid-vs-paradex/ , /guides/perp-dex-kyc/ , /paradex/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/.

Paradex — Zero-fee Retail orders (web app or interactive-token API); Pro orders (standard API) pay a flat maker fee and a 14-day-volume taker ladder. Base tier: 0% (retail) / 0.045% → 0.035% (Pro, by 14-day volume) taker, 0% (retail) / 0.003% (Pro) maker. The zeros describe RETAIL orders. Pro orders pay 0.003% maker and 0.045% taker at the base tier (floor 0.0175% after discounts) — use those for API flow. Discounts: Pro taker: pay fees in DIME for a flat 40% off; stake DIME for a further tiered discount up to 30%; floor 0.0175%. The headline zero covers Retail-classified orders only; an account that exceeds Retail rate limits switches to Pro behaviour and the ladder applies. Schedule verified 2026-09-10 on /paradex/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 Paradex lists 66; 63 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

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

A schedule without a classification switch: 0% maker and stated taker rates at any size, plus per-symbol funding intervals published through the API. The points path is documented: Stage 6 points accumulate toward an $ASTER airdrop share, and the tokenomics reserve a 53.5% Airdrop category. Aster also lists far more perp markets in this site's join.

Where Paradex wins

Product surface: perps, options and spot in one place; both venues hide positions by default, so privacy is not the difference. Retail accounts trade free on both sides. DIME utility is live and documented, with Pro taker fees payable in DIME at a flat 40% discount and buybacks from net revenue. XP Season 3 publishes its weekly pool and start date. What XP becomes is not stated, which is the one point where Aster's docs say more.

What this site could not verify

Which to pick

If you trade retail size and want options, Paradex offers them at zero fee. If you trade size through an API, price Aster's taker rate against Paradex's Pro ladder. If you are trading for points, Aster's programme is the one with an airdrop link, though neither publishes a conversion ratio. The Aster review and the Paradex review carry the detail behind each cell.

Related comparisons

FAQ

Which is cheaper?

For a retail taker, Paradex at 0%. For a maker, both are 0%, but only Aster's zero is unconditional on order classification. For Pro flow on Paradex, the published ladder starts at 0.045% taker and 0.003% maker.

Do points convert to tokens on either venue?

Aster's docs say Stage 6 points accumulate toward an $ASTER airdrop share without a ratio; Paradex's docs make no XP-to-DIME statement. Both rows are dated on the tracker.

Can I see positions on Paradex?

No; hiding them is a stated design choice. Aster does the same by default: its Account Privacy hides balances and open positions, and its docs say activity is public only when a trader switches it off. That is a strategy preference, not a safety ranking.

Open Aster → (opens in a new tab)

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