⚠︎ Risk warning: leveraged derivatives on unregulated platforms — you can lose everything you deposit. Not investment advice.
Aster vs Veranta (2026): Order Book vs Vault Perps
Aster runs a public order book on its own chain, Aster Chain, with privacy on by default. Veranta, formerly Avantis, has no book at all: the avUSDC vault on Base takes the other side of every trade, which fills at the oracle price plus a spread. Both list stock and commodity perps beside crypto.
Verdict
Aster for makers and the wider shelf; Veranta for leverage and commission-free forex. Aster charges 0% maker on every perp category and 0.04% taker on crypto. Veranta charges crypto 0.045% taker and 0.001% maker by open-interest skew, waives commission on forex, metals, indices and equities in growth mode, and quotes FX majors up to 500x. Veranta allows only USDC and isolated margin, and you trade against its vault.
At a glance
| Aster | Veranta | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Aster Chain L1 · order book | Vault counterparty (avUSDC) at oracle price + spread · Base |
| Custody | Self-custody | Non-custodial protocol on Base per the Terms; the docs disagree on social-login wallets |
| KYC | None | No identity step in onboarding docs; Terms exclude US persons and sanctioned countries |
| Base perp fees | 0.04% (crypto) / 0.1% (Group B) / 0.0125% (RWA) / 0% t/m WINNER | 0.045% (crypto) · 0% RWAs / 0.001% (crypto) · 0% RWAs t/m |
| Funding | 8h default; 1h, 2h, 4h or 8h per symbol via the API | Net rate: funding between traders plus a borrow fee paid to LPs |
| Token | $ASTER · live (TGE claim window 17 Sep – 17 Oct 2025) | AVNT · live (Base, fixed 1,000,000,000 supply) |
| Points programme | Active · Aster Convergence: Stage 6 | Ended |
| Operating entity / access | US, Canada, UK among 11 barred (Terms) | Veranta Foundation (Cayman Islands); Terms exclude US persons |
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/ , /veranta/ , /veranta/how-to-start/ , /veranta/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/.
Veranta — Vault-backed (avUSDC counterparty) at oracle price plus spread; maker/taker set by open-interest skew, charged on open and close. Base tier: 0.045% (crypto) · 0% RWAs taker, 0.001% (crypto) · 0% RWAs maker. Numerics are the crypto-major rates; forex, commodities, indices and equities pay zero commission while in growth mode. Discounts: AVNT staking with 30-day volume takes 5% to 30% off fixed-fee trades (2.5% to 25% off Upside profit share); referral discounts stack. Upside Perps charge no commission, keeping 5% to 25% of winning trades. Maker/taker means joining or skewing the lighter side of open interest, not order type; a size-scaled spread and a net rate (funding + borrow) apply on top. The docs' summary table swaps the maker and taker labels. Schedule verified 2026-09-29 on /veranta/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
Veranta is not in this site's market join — it has no public market list the join normalises — so no shared-listing count is published here rather than an estimate. Aster lists 571 perp markets in the 2026-10-05 snapshot; see the market index.
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.
- Veranta: AVNT · live (Base, fixed 1,000,000,000 supply). Points: Ended . The Season 3 page gives a 40,000,000 AVNT reward pool ("up for grabs") but does not say how or when it was distributed. The docs describe no current points season; a $100,000 USDC trading competition runs 21 September – 26 October 2026. The Terms of Service still describe XP as "solely for fun" and "not redeemable for cash or crypto assets", which sits oddly with a season paid in AVNT; read both before counting on a future season.
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 real order book and maker pricing. Makers pay 0% on every perp category, and takers 0.04% on crypto pairs. Aster lists far more markets, $ASTER is live, and its Stage 6 points programme is tied by its docs to an airdrop. You trade against other traders, not the venue's vault.
Where Veranta wins
Leverage and commission-free real-world assets. Veranta quotes up to 500x on FX majors and 200x on metals, and charges no commission on forex, metals, indices and equities while growth mode lasts. Fills come at the oracle price plus a size-scaled spread. The Veranta fees page explains how maker and taker are set by open-interest skew rather than order type.
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.
- Veranta: Upside Perps maximum leverage — 250x on two docs pages, 500x on another.
- Veranta: The LP fee share — "100% of all trading fees" in the vault page headline, 70% in its own table.
- Veranta: Audit reports for v2, deployed in August 2026 — "to be added shortly" on the audits page.
Which to pick
For a maker-friendly book and the longer market list, Aster. For high-leverage forex and metals with no commission for now, and after accepting a vault counterparty and USDC-only isolated margin, Veranta. Both exclude US persons; check each venue's terms. The Aster review and the Veranta review carry the detail.
Related comparisons
- Aster vs dYdX
- Aster vs edgeX
- Aster vs Paradex
- Aster vs Extended
- Aster vs Pacifica
- Aster vs GMX
- Aster vs GRVT
- Aster vs Variational
- Aster vs ApeX Omni
- Aster vs SoDEX
- Aster vs Nado
- Aster vs Vest Markets
- Aster vs Derive
- Hyperliquid vs Aster
- Hyperliquid vs Veranta
FAQ
Which is cheaper for crypto?
For a maker, Aster at 0%. For a taker, Aster's 0.04% against Veranta's 0.045%, before Veranta's spread and net rate.
What does maker mean on Veranta?
Joining the lighter side of open interest, not resting a limit order. A market order can be a maker trade on Veranta.
Do they list the same markets?
Veranta is not in this site's coverage snapshot, because no public market-list endpoint was located, so no shared-markets count is shown.
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