Privacy-focused perpetual and spot DEX offering crypto, stock and commodity perps, now running on its own Aster Chain L1.
New users: Stage 6 airdrop claims, trading points and referral fee sharing
Claim on Aster ↗
Peer-to-peer RFQ derivatives protocol on Arbitrum; its Omni app offers zero-fee perpetuals on 500+ crypto and traditional markets.
New users: Weekly points toward the VAR genesis airdrop, plus loss refunds
Claim on Variational ↗
AsterVariational
Trading fees (base tier)
Spot maker0.005%—
Spot taker0.04%—
Futures maker0%0%
Futures taker0.04%0%
Markets (live)
Coins listed652566
Coins with perpetuals604566
Coins with spot pairs920
24h volume$1.96B—
Coins only here388 coins trade on both264178
New listings (detected live)
Last 30 days3—
Last 90 days3—
Perpetuals listed on both
Cheaper on more coinsof 382 shared perps, by mid price192 coins183 coins
Average funding (24h)positive = longs pay shorts+0.022%+0.009%
Typical price gapmedian between the two venues0.081%0.081%
Safety and access
Proof of reservesYes · real-timeYes · real-time
LicensesNone listedNone listed
Restricted regions12 regionsUnited States, Canada, United Kingdom, China, North Korea…10 regionsUnited States and US territories (incl. Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands), Canada, Taiwan, Cuba, Iran…
HeadquartersNo official HQ disclosed; terms governed by Hong Kong law—
Exchange tokenASTERVAR
Incidents on record20
Aster or Variational?
Aster and Variational are compared here on what matters when you choose where to trade: base trading fees, how many coins each lists, how quickly they add new ones, perpetual prices and funding on the coins both list, and safety signals such as proof of reserves and restricted regions. Live numbers update from the exchanges' public market data; fees and policies were checked against each exchange's own pages.
Aster lists 652 coins and Variational 566. 388 coins trade on both, 264 only on Aster and 178 only on Variational. In the last 30 days Aster added 3 new coins and Variational —.
On the 382 perpetual contracts listed on both exchanges, Aster was cheaper on 192 and Variational on 183, with a typical gap of 0.081%. Gaps like these are what the arbitrage scanner tracks; average 24h funding on the shared coins was +0.022% on Aster and +0.009% on Variational.
Fees above are base-tier rates before VIP levels and token discounts; Aster offers 5 discount options and Variational offers 3 discount options. Availability depends on where you live, so check the restricted regions before signing up.