Centralized exchanges’ derivatives risk controls are carrying out a sweeping crackdown—OI limits, account freezes, and broad risk-control sweeps are hitting everyone. Professional traders urgently need a new trench: a place resistant to random risk-control “bullets,” where they can set ambushes, hide their positions, and execute strategy.
Aster—the protocol many have high hopes for—may have arrived at exactly the right moment. With its permissionless design and strong backing from the BNB Chain ecosystem, could it become the new on-chain derivatives battlefield for large capital during this structural vacuum in the industry?
The sparks are lit, but the smoke of war has yet to rise. The question is: how will the players respond?
“Everyone goes through this phase. When you see a mountain, you want to know what lies beyond it.”
1. The Core Elements of a Derivatives Liquidation Scheme
A successful derivatives “harvesting strategy” requires two key elements:
Absolute control of the spot market
Sufficient Open Interest (OI)
1.1 Spot Control: The Remote Control for Index Prices
Market makers manipulate circulating supply of a token, turning the spot market into a controllable “data board.”
Because derivatives contracts typically derive their Index Price from spot markets—and the Index Price feeds into the Mark Price—controlling spot prices effectively means controlling the mark price.
Once a market maker controls circulating supply, even a small amount of capital can significantly push prices up or down in thin spot markets.
This price movement is then transmitted to the derivatives market via oracles, immediately altering the PnL of contract holders.
1.2 Massive OI: The Foundation of Profit
In many cases, market makers cannot exit through spot markets:
Spot tokens may be locked
Liquidity is too thin
Selling would crash the price
On-chain transactions are traceable
Therefore, derivatives markets become the primary profit channel.
Example:
If a market maker deploys $10M, the spot side incurs rigid costs:
Trading fees
Funding payments
Market impact
Pumping costs
If spot cannot be used to cash out, the derivatives side must generate at least $30M to cover costs and produce profit.
This explains why massive OI is necessary—small spot movements can then generate large derivatives profits.
2. The Tears of the Times: CEX Risk Controls Prevent Massive OI
Limitations of Centralized Exchanges
With increasing global regulatory pressure, exchanges like Binance have strengthened monitoring of abnormal trading behavior.
Large capital faces several barriers:
Account bans and asset freezes
AML compliance and monitoring systems flag:
large capital flows
abnormal trading frequency
This can lead to account suspension or long-term asset freezes.
OI limits
CEXs impose strict limits on Open Interest per account or per asset, making it extremely difficult for large players to build positions capable of influencing market expectations.
Position takeover risk
In extreme volatility, liquidation engines and insurance funds may:
force liquidations
trigger Auto-Deleveraging (ADL)
This can completely destroy a planned market-making strategy.
3. Aster: The On-Chain Derivatives Battlefield in the Binance Ecosystem
Backed by Yzi and CZ, and deeply integrated with the BNB Chain ecosystem, Aster shares strong overlap with Binance’s user base and liquidity providers.
Aster’s API is also almost identical to Binance’s, reducing migration costs for professional traders.
For operators, Aster offers advantages no CEX can provide:
Permissionless trading
Wallet-based access
No risk of account bans
Ability to open extremely large positions
This environment enables a new narrative:
The “Derivatives Harvesting Market”
On a relatively illiquid PerpDEX, large players can exploit information asymmetry and capital advantage, turning derivatives markets into profit engines that spot markets cannot provide.
4. The Pippin Case: Abnormal OI Behavior
Pippin ($PIPPIN )—an AI-driven meme coin active in early 2026—shows many characteristics of this model.
On-chain data suggests that:
27 related wallets control ~80% of the supply
indicating extremely high supply concentration.
On Aster, Pippin displayed unusually large OI relative to trading activity.
Example metrics:
OI: $71M (actual effective OI ~ $35.5M)
24h trading volume: $7.6M
Volume/OI ratio: 0.214
This is highly unusual.
Why?
Market makers accumulate large derivatives positions without real trading turnover.
They then manipulate spot prices via wash trading or coordinated buying/selling.
When the Index Price moves, their derivatives positions generate massive floating profit.
Since there is no centralized oversight, this “self-directed performance” can continue until sufficient counterparties appear.
5. Turning Positions into Profit: Price Transmission and Market Makers
The biggest challenge on a PerpDEX is exiting positions smoothly.
On platforms like Aster, price discovery relies heavily on:
market makers
arbitrage bots
cross-exchange price transmission.
5.1 Cross-Exchange Price Transmission
The strategy works like this:
Market maker accumulates large OI on Aster.
Spot manipulation moves prices.
Price changes propagate through:
Spot price change
→ Oracle update
→ Aster Index Price change
Meanwhile, volatility is also created on Binance Perps.
Market makers then control the spread between Aster and Binance.
Arbitrage bots detect the spread and attempt to capture it.
Example
If Aster’s price is higher than Binance’s:
Arbitrage bots will:
Short on Aster
Long on Binance
The market maker can then transfer their positions to these arbitrage bots, effectively exiting without crashing the market.
Eventually, those short positions may get liquidated—becoming the fuel for further profits.
5.2 Price Transmission via Market-Making Bots
Because market-making algorithms track multiple exchanges, actions on Aster can influence global price feeds.
This creates a situation where:
A small, controllable battlefield (Aster)
can pull liquidity from a larger one (Binance).
5.3 Data Board vs Real Activity
Analytics platforms like Coinglass have pointed out anomalies on Aster:
High OI
Low trading volume
Very low liquidation activity
These signals reinforce the idea that Aster may function more as a “data board” settlement platform than a fully organic trading market.
Market makers don’t need deep organic liquidity—they only need:
stable settlement
high leverage
no account bans.
6. Limitations and Operational Costs
Even with these advantages, the strategy carries major costs.
6.1 Funding Rate Costs
Large OI imbalances create extreme funding rates.
Annualized rates can exceed 200% in extreme cases.
This forces market makers to complete the full cycle quickly:
pump
attract arbitrageurs
exit
Otherwise, funding costs quickly eat into profits.
Example:
With $30M OI, Aster funding can cost ~$96k per day more than Binance.
6.2 Liquidity Friction
Even though Aster performs well among PerpDEXs, its liquidity depth is still far below Binance.
Large positions face:
significant slippage
wide spreads.
Some trading pairs also use dynamic slippage models tied to OI.
Therefore, market makers typically exit positions via:
TWAP execution
OTC deals
arbitrage-driven position transfer.
Future Direction for Aster
With the upcoming Aster Chain mainnet and ZK-based privacy technology, future trading strategies could become:
more hidden
less traceable.
Ironically, this may be the true meaning of “privacy” for the protocol.
Compared with trading subsidies or zero fees, this capability may represent real demand.
If Aster captures the window created by tightening CEX risk controls, it could establish itself as a new derivatives battlefield for strategic trading.
Postscript: The Brutal Second Phase of the Game
The story doesn’t end after the market maker exits.
Now the market looks like this:
Market maker exits
Arbitrage bots hold massive short positions
Price remains at a premium.
Two scenarios may unfold:
Scenario A: The Funding-Rate Trap
If prices remain high without crashing:
Arbitrageurs expect mean reversion.
But if prices stay elevated, funding costs and liquidity constraints can trap them.
Scenario B: The Short Squeeze Hunt
The market maker may return and push prices even higher.
Arbitrage bots’ short positions suffer massive losses.
Their stop-losses trigger market buys, pushing prices even higher.
This cascade becomes fuel for a second round of harvesting.
After all this back-and-forth…
How much profit do you think the Pippin operators ultimately made?
Source: https://x.com/agintender