Aster spiral continues despite support from accelerated buybacks

The Aster token is not performing well despite the team’s continued support with increased buybacks. The platform’s update on the buyback program on its official X page attracted a largely critical audience, triggered by the seemingly down-only price action. 

In the post, the Aster team acknowledged there has been confusion regarding Aster’s buyback program, which is why they decided to share an update on its exact status.

According to them, “S4 buybacks were not stopped,” and on December 8 (UTC), they accelerated S4 buyback execution to $4 million per day and completed the accelerated tranche in eight days with $32 million executed in total. 

By the end of the tranche, the team claims to have cumulatively utilized ~90% of S4 fee income to date for buybacks. The buybacks resumed today, December 17, and are expected to continue through the remainder of Stage 4, funded by the previous day’s S4 fee revenue, in line with the existing framework.

Stage 4 will end on December 21, after which the buyback program will continue according to the post. Parameters for the next phase are reportedly being finalized and will be shared after confirmation. 

Aster holders vent their frustrations 

The majority of the reaction was negative from traders who appear to be frustrated with the underwhelming price performance of the highly touted platform and its token. 

“Do you sell what you buy back?” one popular trader who claimed to have lost a lot longing the token asked, to which another responded with an allegation that implied the team was selling those tokens via another wallet, hence the negligible price recovery despite accelerated buybacks. 

Another common discourse from the supposed holders is how holders of the token were not being rewarded, and how the team continues to create airdrop campaigns. 

The token is currently bleeding at $0.73, and it is down on several key timeframes: 7.2% in the last 24 hours, 21.2% over the past 7 days, and 37.3% in the past month. The token has not reclaimed the $1 price mark this month despite the project’s buybacks. 

Allegations of washtrading and a CZ selloff

In October, Aster saw a 10% price drop after the Web3 data platform DefiLlama delisted the perpetual volume metrics for the decentralized exchange (DEX). DefiLlama’s founder, 0xngmi, also raised concerns over Aster’s data in an X post, showing evidence that Aster’s volume had started closely mirroring perpetuals volume on Binance in recent days. 

0xngmi shared charts that showed a tight correlation between volumes on Aster and Binance, which started late Saturday and continued into Sunday. The DefiLlama chief also posted data that proved the same correlation does not exist on Hyperliquid. 

“Aster doesn’t make it possible to get lower level data such as who is making and filling orders, so until we can get that data to verify if there’s washtrading, aster perp volumes will be delisted,” they wrote while adding that they have never held a long or short position on ASTER or HYPE. 

That was in early October. As the month ran to an end, the Aster token dropped by 19% after rumors started circulating that crypto’s golden boy, Changpeng Zhao, had sold a whopping $30 million worth of tokens. 

In the days following Aster’s launch, CZ constantly endorsed it and shilled it to his followers. He also showed off some of his purchases of the token, which served to galvanize holders’ faith that it could run like the Hype token did since Aster was meant to compete with Hyperliquid. 

Fortunately, on-chain analysts were quick to debunk the rumors, showing the transfers actually occurred between Binance’s own hot wallets, and not from any CZ-linked address. Apparently, the screenshot had been doctored to spread FUD, and CZ even publicly disclosed he had purchased $2 million worth of Aster tokens in November. 

He has also stated he is holding for the long term, and there is no on-chain proof he has been selling despite the spiral. 

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