A whale has turned a $300,000 investment in Aster (ASTER) into a $7 million profit, according to on-chain data.

The tokens surge in value coincides with Asters perpetual trading volume hitting a new high of $35.86 billion in 24 hours, surpassing its rival, Hyperliquid.

Whales Cash Out on ASTER

Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain was the first to report the transaction via X, noting that a pseudonymous user, Unipcs, had withdrawn a total of 3.24 million ASTER from Gateio. The whale later shared an update breaking down the trade, saying they had purchased 3,245,933.37 ASTER tokens for $299,166.79 at an average price of $0.0922 per coin, a position now worth over $7.1 million at current prices.

They explained that the transfer was mainly to consolidate tokens into a public wallet and clarified, “So to those who have been messaging to say, ‘welcome to the ASTER trade’: I opened the trade a week ago!”

Elsewhere, whale 0x5bd cashed out 1.56 million ASTER, amounting to approximately $3.57 million from Bybit. The investor had accumulated 6.718 million coins at an average entry price of around $1.98 and continues to hold 8.26 million tokens valued at about $19 million.

Large holders have gone on an ASTER buying spree over the past 24 hours, with CryptoPotato reporting that whales scooped up more than $48 million worth of the token across multiple purchases.

Meanwhile, ASTER’s rally shows no signs of slowing, with the token climbing more than 270% in the past week. Its momentum has been driven by support from YZi Labs and public endorsements from CZ.

Aster’s Daily Volume Surpasses Hyperliquid’s

Aster is slowly starting to gain ground over Hyperliquid, its largest competitor. Data from DefiLlama also shows that it led in daily perpetual trading volumes, reaching $35.86 billion in the past 24 hours. On the other hand, Hyperliquid reported about $10 billion in the same period.

The project has also recorded a notable rise in open interest in less than a week. CoinGlass data shows that the metric climbed from $3.72 million on Friday to $1.24 billion at the time of writing, an increase of nearly 33,200%.

Open interest is the total number of contracts that remain unsettled and is often used as a measure of liquidity and market confidence. The rise suggests traders are committing more capital to Aster.

Additionally, its total value locked (TVL) has climbed to $2.09 billion, marking a 233% increase from $625 million recorded on Friday.