From 0 to 6 billion USD in trading volume: My firsthand experience of Aster DEX's market growth in Japan

Author: DP Capital

As a rising star in the DEX space, behind the explosive TGE of Aster, our institution has started from scratch to expand the Aster community in Japan, building a network of top KOLs and trading communities. As of now, we have achieved a monthly trading volume of approximately $6 billion, covering 24,863 Japanese trading users.

The Power of Localization: Aster's Exclusive Partner in Japan

Sharing from Ki, a partner at DP Capital:

"I am honored to be the exclusive partner of Aster DEX in Japan, driving its trading volume to exceed $3.5 billion in just a few months. This is only a phased achievement; our goals go far beyond this. Our team has long been deeply involved in the Japanese blockchain community, focusing on liquidity, staking, and DEX market-related collaborations."

Why Are We Betting on DEX?

Last year, many KOLs in the Japanese community achieved financial freedom through Hyperliquid. Early holders and contributors of Hype have now become the first supporters of Aster in Japan. In fact, the Japanese market ranks fifth in Hyperliquid's global trading volume, and our community's focus is almost entirely centered around DEX. Looking at the top ten projects on DefiLlama, our team has collaborated with more than half of them.

The emergence of Aster is in this context. The project was initially introduced to us by friends in the DEX field. During our first conversation, we felt the team's passion and determination to cultivate the Japanese market. Later, at the Dubai 2049 conference, I spoke directly with the Aster CEO. His presentation on the BNB ecosystem and project explanation confirmed several things for me: the team has a solid background, the product has potential, and the CEO is extremely serious. Based on my intuition and judgment, I believe Aster is very likely to become the next dark horse in the DEX space.

From May to September, we witnessed and participated in Aster's explosive growth in Japan from zero. This article is a complete review and sharing of my four-month localization expansion and DEX market strategy.

Cold Start Dilemma: Breaking Through from $5 Million to $6 Billion

Although Aster has gained popularity in the Chinese-speaking regions, the Japanese market remains almost blank. Japanese users are largely unaware of Aster in the DEX space. We invited well-known Japanese trading KOLs to experience and evaluate Aster's products, but most were initially rejected.

Three Major Challenges for New DEX Projects Entering Japan:

Language and cultural barriers ------ Japanese users are extremely sensitive to details and expression.

Difficulty in building trust ------ In finance and trading, brand endorsement and community reputation are crucial.

CEX dominance, with DEX users being vertical ------ Just like the precise segmentation of contract users among trading users in Japanese CEX, competition for limited DEX contract users is very fierce.

We Started Solving from the Basics:

Localization language upgrade
We revised the Japanese version of the platform, especially the Trade (Simple), Trade (Pro), and Earn sections. Unlike most "half-baked" translations on the market, we invited blockchain professional editors and experienced traders to optimize it. For large Japanese traders, a single translation error or improper terminology could undermine trust. The upgraded Aster interface finally met the professional standards recognized by Japanese users.

Key SEO and content positioning
We covered core Google search terms to ensure that when Japanese users first search for Aster, they receive positive and accurate information. By extracting all search term data from Hyperliquid and combining it with the top ten keywords in Japan, we customized three key monthly keywords for Aster:

• Asterdex エアドロ（Airdrop）
• Asterdex 使い方（How to Use）
• Asterdex 仮想通貨（Decentralized Exchange）

Around these keywords, we continuously published Japanese content while creating registration tutorials, operation guides, and serialized articles on airdrop claims to gradually shape the user cognitive path.

User experience optimization and community outreach
With each product update, we shared it with the trading KOL community immediately. By optimizing and disseminating simultaneously, we allowed KOLs and early users to feel Aster's growth and market maturity.

With the upgraded Japanese version, Aster's monthly trading volume surged from an initial $5 million to $20 million, laying the foundation for subsequent scalable growth. It can be said that Aster's first step in Japan was not "aggressive marketing," but rather building trust through precise localization + SEO positioning + user experience, allowing Japanese users to use it more smoothly and with greater peace of mind.

Differentiated Competition: The Growth Logic of DEX in Japan

The Japanese DEX market is highly competitive. Aster must find a breakthrough under limited resources. In the first two months of entering Japan, the monthly trading volume was only about $20 million, far below expectations.

As an agency, we provided support and endorsement for the Japanese market: providing Aster with a list of top trading KOLs and closed trading communities, each channel backed by a real trading volume user group. Subsequently, the team developed a differentiated market strategy:

• Not relying on large-scale advertising
• Target incentive mechanisms focusing on actual trading volume KOLs
• Precise channels driving high-value users, ensuring long-term stickiness

This approach allowed Aster to establish a unique positioning in Japan: not relying on burning money for short-term visibility, but gradually growing through high-quality users + competition-driven trading. We reached a consensus with the Aster team to use incentive strategies to open up trading collaborations with top players in Japan.

In contrast to some competing DEXs' "showing muscles" strategy ------ massive subsidies, trading competitions, and advertising spending. The market can acquire customers quickly if it is willing to spend money, but once Aster's target incentives break through, the efficiency and sustainability will be very strong.

Resource Barriers: KOL Matrix and Customized Incentives

We provided a rare list of Japanese community contacts: about 20 top trading KOL community matrices, each with thousands of active users and real trading connections.

Based on this, we designed a tiered trading incentive model:

• Setting different targets for large, medium, and small communities
• Not evaluating by fame, but using real trading volume as the sole standard

The trading target for medium and small channels reached $30 million monthly, while the target for top channels exceeded $1 billion monthly.

During the execution process, the Aster team and CEO visited Japan multiple times to communicate face-to-face with KOLs, greatly enhancing market trust. During CZ's visit to the Tokyo WebX conference in August, he mentioned the future of DEX. This formed an important trust endorsement for our promotion, and we also fully amplified Aster's differentiated advantages: multi-chain support, perpetual contracts, hidden orders, privacy protection, dual modes for novice and professional users, and backing from funds and institutions.

The involvement of key KOLs led to a rapid leap in market data: daily trading volume exceeding $10 million, with over 500 new users added daily. The community concentrated on mobilizing 20 KOL channels, continuously producing content: Twitter promotions, dedicated Japanese AMAs, YouTube reviews, community airdrop content, and combined with CMC and DefiLlama data endorsements and interactions with industry influencers to achieve secondary dissemination.

At the same time, we organized standardized Japanese tutorials and official market policies, combined with high trading volume KOL cases, to spread in new channels, improving dissemination efficiency and user education levels.

This month, Aster's growth curve in Japan significantly exceeded expectations, achieving a trading volume of $6 billion. We look forward to the next larger trading volume target: $50 billion monthly.

Future Challenges: Aster's Risks and Development

Aster's rapid rise is inseparable from solid support and unique product strength. The investments from Binance and YZi Labs provide strong confidence for opening the Japanese market.

From the market landscape, Hyperliquid still occupies a leading position in Japan, maintaining liquidity through technical advantages and professional communities. Our Japanese community user structure is still primarily based on Hyperliquid, with Aster following closely, but there is enormous growth potential.

As a "rising star," Aster attracts a large number of novice users through product innovation + airdrop marketing + skyrocketing token prices. Core competitive advantages include:

• Multi-chain support and innovative features
• Friendly for novices while catering to professional trading
• Strong capital and institutional backing
• Whether it can maintain the top position in the future depends on:
• Continuous product iteration ------ optimizing the trading experience and maintaining technological leadership
• Token price and market performance ------ maintaining user attraction
• Long-term incentive mechanisms ------ cultivating user stickiness and loyalty through airdrops and community incentives

As the only exclusive partner in Japan, we will continue to fully support Aster, conveying the latest market demands and feedback to the team to promote product and service optimization. We also look forward to Aster exploring a broader blue ocean market alongside more excellent projects in the new DEX season of 2025.

This article is a user submission and does not represent the position of ChainCatcher.