George Town, British Virgin Islands, September 28, 2026 — Aster, the privacy-first onchain trading platform backed by YZi Labs, today announced the launch of its Liquidity Pool Mining campaign, a four-week incentive program carrying a total reward pool of up to 140,000 $ASTER. The campaign runs from September 28 to October 25, 2026 (UTC) and celebrates the rollout of Perpetual Grid 2.0, the latest upgrade to the platform's automated trading infrastructure.

The program is open to all Aster users running Perpetual Grid strategies on eligible trading pairs. Rewards will be distributed hourly based on each eligible Grid's share of trading volume, with each hourly distribution period referred to as an epoch. The base reward pool is set at 10,000 $ASTER per epoch, with additional rewards available depending on market conditions and trading activity across the platform. Participation is automatic, and no registration is required.

"As Aster continues to bring more emerging assets and opportunities onchain, we're also focused on building the tools traders need to navigate increasingly dynamic markets," said Leonard, CEO at Aster. "Perpetual Grid offers a flexible way to capture opportunities amid market volatility, and Grid 2.0 takes this experience further with greater flexibility and independence. This upgrade is another step toward our broader vision of building the frontier of onchain trading."

Incentivizing Automatedpetual Trading

The campaign builds on Aster's expanded Perpetual Grid infrastructure, giving users a new way to take part in automated trading while earning additional $ASTER rewards from eligible Grid activity. Both Maker and Taker volume count toward the campaign, while manual trading and any activity outside the Grid strategy are excluded.

The mechanics follow a familiar DeFi playbook. Grid strategies automate buy and sell orders across preset price intervals, a long-used approach for trading range-bound or volatile conditions without constant manual oversight, and liquidity mining — distributing token incentives to users who generate onchain trading activity — has become a common way for decentralized venues to direct incentives toward the behavior they want to deepen.

Users will also see an Estimated Bonus APY, a figure that indicates potential annualized $ASTER rewards based on recent campaign activity. The estimate can change as trading volume, participating Grids, and other campaign conditions shift, and it does not guarantee future rewards or returns.

Grid 2.0 Separates Automated and Manual Strategies

Alongside the campaign, the newly upgraded Perpetual Grid 2.0 introduces a structural change: Grid strategies now operate independently from a user's regular Perpetual trading. Each Grid runs through a dedicated Grid Bot subaccount, which keeps its positions and margin separate from the main Perpetual account — an arrangement that prevents automated execution from drawing on, or being affected by, a trader's manual positions.

The separation means users no longer need to choose between automation and manual execution. With support for both Cross and Isolated Margin, automated Grid strategies and manual Perpetual trades can run in parallel, including on the same trading pair. Isolated Margin supports up to 50 independent Grid strategies per account, with no per-pair limit.

Discovering Strategies Through the Grid Marketplace

Aster's Grid Marketplace further simplifies strategy discovery by allowing users to browse active Grid strategies and review metrics such as PnL, ROI, runtime, price range, leverage, and trading activity. An existing strategy can be used as a starting point through Copy, or its direction can be switched through Reverse, turning a Long strategy into Short or vice versa. Copied or reversed strategies remain independent from their source and do not automatically synchronize with the original Grid.

Eligible Pairs and Hourly Reward Distribution

The Liquidity Pool Mining campaign is available on designated eligible trading pairs, with Week 1 pairs including OURA/USD1, POLYMARKET/USD1, and META/USD1 — an initial lineup consistent with the platform's stated focus on emerging assets. The reward pool is shared across participating pairs, and individual rewards are determined by each Grid's eligible trading volume relative to the total eligible volume generated during the relevant hourly period. Because the split is pro rata, each Grid's payout depends on both its own volume and total campaign participation. Hourly distributions continue for the duration of the four-week campaign.

More eligible trading pairs may be added in subsequent weeks to reflect the latest market trends, making the weekly pair lineup and reward parameters worth tracking as the program unfolds. Full details on the campaign, eligible trading pairs, and current campaign parameters are available on the official campaign page.

About Aster

Aster is a privacy-first onchain trading platform backed by YZi Labs, with features such as Hidden Orders that protect user trading activity. The platform offers perpetual futures, spot, and earn products covering top-trending assets, including RWAs, memes, and core crypto markets. It is powered by Aster Chain, a Layer 1 blockchain built to power the future of decentralized finance. More information is available on the official website, and users can follow Aster on X for updates.

The announcement was distributed via Chainwire and originally reported by Metaverse Post. Media inquiries can be directed to Marketing Manager Lola Chen at lola.chen@asterdex.com.