Recently, the ASTER project has been making quite a splash. A founder of a major exchange invested a real 2 million USD to buy in and continues to add to their position. Such high-level involvement usually hides some underlying logic—what could it be?

Even more interesting are the moves at the protocol level. Since December 23rd, Aster has directly launched a "long-term buyback and burn" mode—using 80% of the platform's revenue daily to buy ASTER on the market and then directly burn it. It sounds simple, but the economics behind it are worth pondering.

From another perspective, this establishes two layers of support: the first comes from the big players' real money backing. As long as they keep adding to their holdings, the market has visible buying confidence. The second comes from the protocol's ongoing buyback. As long as the platform has trading volume and revenue, there will be a continuous flow of funds to sweep the market and burn circulating tokens. Theoretically, the larger the trading volume → the more revenue → the stronger the buyback → the more pronounced the deflation. This creates a self-reinforcing value cycle.

However, to be honest, how far this model can go depends mainly on the Aster platform itself. The DEX space is highly competitive; whether trading volume and revenue can sustain growth, and whether the platform can maintain competitiveness among many rivals—these are the decisive factors. Buybacks and burns are just the icing on the cake; the platform must have vitality itself.

With big backers supporting and the protocol's own buyback mechanism, this combination indeed has potential. But what do you think? Do you believe this "big backers + mechanism support" model can sustain continuous growth, or will it require more time and data to verify? Share your thoughts in the comments.