Misfortunes never come alone: the market's big dump combined with a crisis of confidence has caused ASTER to fall over 20% due to unfair airdrop allocation and "whipsaw" trading accusations.

The price of the ASTER Token plummeted over 20% to $1.27 within just a few hours, following widespread anger and manipulation allegations in the community over the distribution results of the project's second phase Airdrop. Users with millions of dollars in volume received rewards worth only a few hundred dollars, while actual users accused "Whipsaw traders" and insiders of siphoning off most of the shares. The timing of this price drop coincided with DeFiLlama removing ASTER's Perptual Futures trading volume data due to alleged Wash Trading. Under the pressure of multiple Unfavourable Information, ASTER is testing crucial technical support levels, with the market at a critical point of "success or failure in this one move."

Airdrop allocation sparks community outrage and manipulation allegations

The distribution results of the ASTER second phase Airdrop are far below the community's expectations, leading users to seriously question the fairness of the project.

· A huge contrast between rewards and investment:

· A trader with a trading volume of 2 million dollars in Perptual Futures only received tokens worth about 100 dollars.

· Another user who generated a trading volume of 100 million dollars only received 338 ASTER Tokens.

A user obtained 2,245 ASTER worth approximately $3,600 through a trading volume of over $10 million and a fee of $2,830, but after deducting fees, only made a profit of $800, which is far less generous than the airdrops of other DEXs.

· Insider manipulation allegations: Community members accuse the ASTER team of diluting shares by 50% without fixing issues before the end of the third phase. More detailed comparative data shows that wallets from real trades received extremely low rewards, while wallets from bot activities received disproportionately high allocations, which contradicts the project's promise of "not encouraging whipsaw trading," leading to fierce accusations of "insider allocation."

· Team Responds to Airdrop Delay: After several hours of strong backlash from the community, the ASTER team acknowledged that there may be inconsistencies in the allocation data and promised to review and update it in the coming days. As a result, the ASTER airdrop has been postponed to October 20, and users can choose the USDT refund option within 48 hours after the allocation update.

Data Integrity in Question: DeFiLlama Removes Volume

Before the Airdrop controversy erupted, the integrity of ASTER's trading data had been questioned by the well-known decentralized finance data platform DeFiLlama.

· Whipsaw trading suspicion: DeFiLlama removed the volume data for ASTER's Perptual Futures earlier this week because it discovered that the trading volume of ASTER on multiple trading pairs such as XRP/USDT had a correlation close to 1:1 with the trading volume of mainstream CEX Futures Trading.

· Co-founder speaks out: DeFiLlama co-founder 0xngmi cites concerns over data integrity, pointing out that the volume of ASTER almost perfectly mirrors that of Binance, while other platforms like Hyperliquid do not exhibit such a high correlation. Due to the lack of maker-taker data, the platform is unable to verify whether whipsaw trading has occurred.

· Criticism from blockchain detective: Well-known blockchain detective ZachXBT has also criticized the viewpoint within the industry that normalizes whipsaw trading.

Technical Analysis: The End of Triangle Convergence Under Maximum Pessimism

As the Unfavourable Information in the fundamentals intensifies, the technical chart of ASTER shows that the price is in a critical compression zone, facing a huge directional choice.

· Testing key support level: ASTER has broken below the $2.34 high on the 4-hour chart and is testing the key support area between $1.50 and $1.56. This area is the critical "success or failure hinges on this" level to maintain the previous upward structure. A break below this area could trigger an accelerated decline, targeting the red area between $1.29 and $1.50. Alongside the latest market pullback, ASTER has further declined to $1.27, with a 24-hour drop of 26%.

· Symmetrical Triangle Pattern: The daily chart shows that ASTER is at the end of a Symmetrical Triangle pattern, with converging trendlines forcing the price to make a directional choice in the short term.

· Extreme pessimism: The contrarian indicator shows that community sentiment is in a state of "maximum pessimism". Although this extreme sentiment sometimes indicates a depletion of selling, technical evidence shows a clear downtrend, and there are no characteristics of panic selling volume.

· Short-term outlook: The sell-off triggered by the unfair distribution of the Airdrop aligns with the typical "post-airdrop liquidation" pattern, but the 20% fall indicates that the level of disappointment exceeded normal expectations. The next direction of ASTER depends on whether it can successfully hold the support zone of $1.50 to $1.56; if the defense is successful, it may trigger a rebound to $1.80 to $2.00, but a sustained recovery requires overcoming multiple resistance levels and rebuilding the damaged community trust.

Conclusion

ASTER is at the intersection of multiple crises: the fairness of the Airdrop distribution, accusations of Whipsaw trading, and the ensuing community trust crisis and price big dump. The price has fallen to the key technical support level of $1.50 to $1.56, setting a clear battleground for bulls and bears. If the project team cannot address the accusations of unfair distribution and data manipulation in a transparent and convincing manner before the deadline of the delayed Airdrop on October 20, and repair the broken community trust, the AST Token will face the significant risk of further declines, turning this pullback into a full-blown trust crisis.

Disclaimer: This article is for news information only and does not constitute any investment advice. The cryptocurrency market is highly volatile, and investors should make cautious decisions.