RIADeFi
Refusal file · other

Why Ketju rejected Aster Bridge

Memo v1Published by Ketju Research

A registry memo, published verbatim and versioned. Superseded versions are recorded, never edited away. A rejection is a judgment for Ketju's client base and thesis, not a universal safety claim. Not investment, legal, tax, or compliance advice.

The memo

REJECTED ON TWO STANDING FACTS THIS REVIEW COULD NOT VERIFY AROUND, NOT ON A CONFIRMED EXPLOIT. Aster Bridge moves collateral into Aster, a perpetuals exchange whose team CZ has publicly confirmed includes former Binance staff. No named multisig, security council, or specific admin, pause, or upgrade authority for the bridge or core contracts was found in this review despite a direct search of Aster's own documentation — a disclosure gap in the same category this registry has rejected other bridges over. More decisively, DefiLlama, the same data source this registry relies on for TVL figures throughout, has itself flagged Aster's self-reported trading-volume data as unverifiable amid wash-trading concerns. A registry that trusts DefiLlama's numbers elsewhere should not wave off DefiLlama's own credibility warning about this specific protocol.

What would reopen the file

  • Aster Bridge's admin, pause, and upgrade authority is publicly disclosed and mapped to named parties or a multisig with a published threshold
  • DefiLlama or another independent data provider restores and sustains verified, non-flagged volume and TVL reporting for Aster for at least 90 consecutive days
  • Token concentration among the top wallets materially declines from the reported greater-than-96%-in-six-wallets level, independently verified on-chain
  • A proposed-size withdrawal is independently demonstrated to clear without delay under normal and stressed conditions

Facts on file

Verdict
Rejected
Exposure
other
Chains examined
Ethereum
Memo version
v1
Reviewed
Next review

← All published refusals