A crypto whale holding a massive position in Hyperliquid’s native token HYPE has offloaded about $9 million of their holdings to the new decentralized exchange project Aster.
According to blockchain tracker Lookonchain, the unidentified whale initially purchased and staked 2 million HYPE tokens nine months ago, spending $17.4 million at an average of $8.68 per token. At peak valuation, that investment ballooned to more than $107 million, but at the time of this publication, it had reduced to about $89 million.
Over the past two hours, on-chain data shows the whale sold 201,900 HYPE, worth approximately $8.93 million, and routed the proceeds to Aster. Even after the sales, the whale still controls about 1.8 million HYPE tokens, with an estimated value of $80 million.
After staking HYPE for 9 months, the whale made an order to unstake the coins on September 9, which was approved 21 hours later. The investor received the assets and liquidated a portion of the holdings.
A whale who bought and staked 2M $HYPE(cost $17.4M, now worth $107.2M) 9 months ago at $8.68 avg has now unstaked it and is very likely to sell for profits!
9 months ago, this whale deposited 17.4M $USDC into #Hyperliquid through 3 wallets and bought 2M $HYPE at $8.68 avg, then… pic.twitter.com/1DTkfWSqrQ
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 16, 2025
Lookonchain reported on September 16 that the whale had deposited $17.4 million USDC into Hyperliquid through three wallets. The funds were used to acquire 2 million HYPE tokens, which were later distributed to nine different wallets for staking. Some of the addresses involved included 0x382f1…ba11d7, 0xa08ae97…c4abcc, and 0xa47e…6d0bdb8.
According to Arkham Intelligence data, they offloaded chunks of HYPE and the resulting stablecoin proceeds on Tuesday towards Aster. The initial unstaked coins and liquidation netted realized profits of roughly $89.8 million, but only $9 million was used to acquire positions on the DEX token.
Aster was bought in at least three transactions, including a $3.41 million transfer, $2.41 million swap, and a $3.99 million exchange, all routed into new addresses.
The whale is not the only trader pushing capital into Aster. Lookonchain also identified a newly created wallet, 0x5bd4, that purchased 6.72 million Aster tokens worth nearly $14 million from Bybit on Tuesday, which has now grown to over $15 million after a small jump in the coin’s price.
Infamous crypto trader James Wynn’s account was also spotted exchanging referral rewards totaling $8,032.5 to go long on Aster and shorting HYPE.
James Wynn(@JamesWynnReal) claimed $8,032.5 in referral rewards and went long on $ASTER while shorting $HYPE.https://t.co/FX6sISWuDP pic.twitter.com/FK1CAOA3yz
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 24, 2025
According to Hyperscan on-chain records, Wynn’s address 0x5078C…ce56BeDb6 currently has a $37,000 long position on Aster.
After slumping earlier in the week, Aster surged more than 35% in the past 24 hours, trading above $2.20 at press time. The token’s average spot price hovered slightly above $1.20 on September 17 before breaking resistance levels in subsequent trading sessions.
The spot and perpetual trading decentralized exchange coin is one of the most discussed projects in the market, aided by the support of Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao.
“What people don’t get yet is that Aster is likely CZ’s insurance plan for Binance. Aster won’t stay a perp dex; it’ll likely have many of the functions of Binance cex. It already even has an ‘Earn’ category,” said cross-chain Layer 1 network Glue Net founder Ogle.
Since its token generation event in early September, ASTER has surged by more than 2,615%, which has garnered attention from influencers like YouTuber Mr Beast.
As Cryptopolitan reported last weekend, the most subscribed YouTuber poured over $114,000 into the new project. However, at around 9:00 PM UTC Tuesday, Mr Beast sold $124,000 worth of Aster, which is almost half of the coins he had acquired last Friday, according to Arkham data.
Sign up to Bybit and start trading with $30,050 in welcome gifts