Aster introduced a volume-based incentive model encouraging users to generate trading activity in exchange for token rewards. While publicly framed as a growth mechanism, the structure inherently rewards excessive churn rather than sustainable usage.
As volume increased, protocol fees accumulated steadily, creating a reliable revenue stream for the project. Simultaneously, continuous token emissions entered circulation with no offsetting demand or burn mechanism, leading to persistent downward pressure on price.
This model transfers value from participants to the protocol through fees while distributing inflationary rewards that rapidly depreciate. The outcome aligns with known fee-extraction and soft-rug patterns, where losses are socialized among users despite full technical compliance.