⚠︎ Risk warning: leveraged derivatives on unregulated platforms — you can lose everything you deposit. Not investment advice.
Aster vs Vest Markets (2026): Stock Perps Compared
Both are among the larger venues for US stock perps. Aster runs a public order book on its own chain, Aster Chain, with privacy on by default. Vest matches off-chain, prices risk through its zkRisk engine and keeps balances on Base, charging by session rather than with a flat rate.
Verdict
Aster for breadth and its book; Vest for free stock trading in US hours. Aster charges 0% maker on every perp category, 0.04% taker on crypto and 0.0125% on RWA pairs. Vest charges nothing on US stocks in market hours and 0.01% to open or close crypto, plus zkRisk premia. Vest runs a single validator, marks positions to the last trade, and rolled back its ledger once in 2026.
At a glance
| Aster | Vest Markets | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Aster Chain L1 · order book | Off-chain matching, zkRisk pricing, state on Base |
| Custody | Self-custody | Balances and positions in contracts on Base; one validator today |
| KYC | None | No identity step in sign-up docs; Terms prohibit US, UK, China + |
| Base perp fees | 0.04% (crypto) / 0.1% (Group B) / 0.0125% (RWA) / 0% t/m | 0% stocks in US hours · 0.01% crypto / 0% stocks in US hours · 0.01% crypto t/m |
| Funding | 8h default; 1h, 2h, 4h or 8h per symbol via the API | Continuous; hourly formula with a 5% APY interest term |
| 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 · Vest Markets points (weekly, no end date) |
| Operating entity / access | US, Canada, UK among 11 barred (Terms) | Vest Exchange Inc. (Panama); prohibits US, UK, China + |
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/ , /vest/ , /vest/how-to-start/ , /vest/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/.
Vest Markets — Session-based fee per market plus zkRisk risk premia and funding; off-chain matching, state on Base. Base tier: 0% stocks in US hours · 0.01% crypto taker, 0% stocks in US hours · 0.01% crypto maker. Not a single maker/taker rate: stocks 0% from 4 AM to 8 PM EST on weekdays, 0.05% overnight, 0.10% at weekends; FX 0% on weekdays, 0.25% at weekends; ES and NQ 0%; crypto 0.01% to open or close. The public API showed a taker fee of 0 on 83 of 88 trading markets. Discounts: No volume tiers or token discount documented. zkRisk charges premia by each trade's marginal risk on top of the listed fee; non-crypto markets pause at weekends since 31 July 2026. Schedule verified 2026-09-30 on /vest/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 Vest Markets lists 84; 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
- 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.
- Vest Markets: None named in the docs. Points: Active — Vest Markets points (weekly, no end date); Distributed weekly on Wednesday for trading volume (currently boosted on equity markets), referred volume and Vest Liquidity Pool deposits; a one-time reward for connecting social accounts. Vest Exchange points were merged in.. Docs: points "will be used to determine rewards provided to users in the future", and "Vest Markets will publish additional information about rewards in the future". No token is named. The docs say there is "no firm end date to the points program" and publish no formula or 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
Maker pricing, hours and breadth. Makers pay 0% everywhere, takers 0.0125% on RWA pairs, and Aster's market list is far longer. $ASTER is live. Aster trades around the clock, where Vest pauses non-crypto markets at weekends.
Where Vest wins
No fee at all on US stocks in market hours, and zero liquidation penalties. Vest's shelf also carries CME-tracking index and energy perps and FX. The Vest fees page has the session table.
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.
- Vest Markets: Whether settled trades are final — Vest restored its whole ledger to an earlier snapshot after the April 2026 pricing incident.
- Vest Markets: Maximum leverage — "up to 50x" in the docs against 1% initial margin ratios on nine markets.
- Vest Markets: What points convert to — no token or rewards are named.
Which to pick
For a maker-friendly book, the longer list and 24/7 trading, Aster. For taking stock positions in US hours at no fee, and after accepting Vest's single validator and incident record, Vest. Both bar the United States; Vest also prohibits the United Kingdom and China. The Aster review and the Vest 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 Veranta
- Aster vs Nado
- Aster vs Derive
- Hyperliquid vs Aster
- Hyperliquid vs Vest Markets
FAQ
Which is cheaper for stocks?
For a taker in US market hours, Vest at no fee against Aster's 0.0125% on RWA pairs. For a maker, both can be free: Aster charges 0% maker everywhere.
Is either a fully on-chain venue?
Aster matches on its own chain. Vest matches off-chain and keeps balances and positions on Base, verified by one validator today.
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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