Aster Skyrockets After CZ Discloses $2.5M Stake

Aster’s native token ripped higher on Sunday after Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao disclosed that he holds more than $2.5 million of the asset. Sharing his wallet on X, CZ said he bought “some Aster” with his own funds on Binance and reiterated that he is a buy-and-hold investor. The declaration set off copy-trading. Prices jumped from about $0.91 to $1.26 before easing to about $1.22, based on CoinGecko data.

Liquidity followed. DefiLlama shows Aster’s 24-hour trading volume surged from around $224 million to more than $2 billion, while market capitalization climbed from about $1.8 billion to above $2.5 billion. An X user Gold said they opened a position after CZ’s post, noting it was the first time he had publicly announced buying a token other than BNB.

CZ later said he had hoped to accumulate more at lower prices and emphasized that he rarely buys tokens, pointing to BNB eight years ago and now Aster. Not everyone is convinced the rally will stick. On-chain data flagged by Lookonchain showed one trader building a short of about 42.97 million Aster, valued near $52.8 million, with liquidation around $2. A second trader increased a short to about 15.3 million tokens, worth $19.1 million, with a $2.11 liquidation level.

CZ has previously cheered the project’s progress. His family office YZi Labs invested in Aster’s predecessor, Astherus, before Aster emerged from a late-2024 merger between Astherus and APX Finance. In September, BNB Chain representatives said Aster received support from BNB Chain and YZi Labs. The reaction echoes last week’s jump in privacy coin Zcash, which rallied about 30% after Arthur Hayes predicted a future price of $10,000.