Large traders face a fundamental problem on decentralized exchanges: transparency works against them. When a $10 million buy order appears on an order book, other traders immediately front-run it, pushing prices higher before the order fills. Aster solved this with hidden orders, a feature that launched in June 2025 and made the platform the first perpetual DEX to offer fully concealed order placement.
What Are Hidden Orders?
Hidden orders allow traders to place limit orders without revealing any information to the public order book. No price, no size, no indication the order exists. The order goes directly into Aster's matching engine and only becomes visible after execution completes.
Consider a practical example: a trader wants to buy Bitcoin at $100,000. With a normal limit order, that buy order appears on the order book for everyone to see. Other traders can front-run it, market makers can adjust their quotes, and algorithms can position themselves accordingly. With a hidden order, nothing appears until another trader sells into that price level, at which point the trade executes and becomes public.
This mechanism provides what Aster CEO Leonard described as "full anonymity without compromising liquidity, privacy and fairness." According to Aster's documentation, hidden orders often execute faster than iceberg orders because they prevent market prices from moving in reaction to the order's presence.
Why Hidden Orders Matter for Perpetual Trading
The need for order privacy became dramatically clear in June 2025 when pseudonymous trader James Wynn publicly shared his $1.2 billion BTC long position on Hyperliquid. Within days, coordinated efforts to liquidate his position resulted in approximately $17.5 million in losses. "The only reason price has gone down is because they are hunting me," Wynn stated.
CZ responded to this incident by proposing "dark pool" style perpetuals trading, arguing that visible order books expose large traders to predatory tactics. Less than three weeks later, Aster launched hidden orders as a direct implementation of this concept. This feature represents one of several key differentiators in the Aster vs Hyperliquid comparison, with Hyperliquid currently lacking equivalent privacy tools.
The risks of order visibility in perpetual markets include:
Front-running: Traders or bots detect large orders and trade ahead of them, capturing profit at the original trader's expense.
MEV extraction: On-chain visibility allows miners and validators to reorder transactions for profit, often at user expense.
Liquidation hunting: Visible leveraged positions become targets for coordinated price manipulation designed to trigger liquidations.
Information leakage: Competitors and counterparties gain insight into trading strategies and position sizes.
How Aster Hidden Orders Work
The technical implementation balances privacy with market integrity through several key mechanisms.
Direct Engine Routing
Hidden orders bypass the visible order book entirely, routing directly to Aster's main matching engine. This preserves price-time priority, meaning hidden orders compete fairly with visible orders based on when they were placed and at what price.
Commit/Relay Pattern
Aster uses a commit/relay mechanism that reduces pre-trade signaling. Traders commit to orders cryptographically before revealing execution details, making it significantly harder for front-runners to exploit the information.
Shared Liquidity Pool
Unlike dark pools that fragment liquidity into separate venues, hidden orders on Aster tap into the same liquidity as visible orders. This maintains tight spreads and efficient price discovery while providing anonymity.
| Feature | Hidden Orders | Normal Orders | Dark Pools | Iceberg Orders |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visible on Order Book | No | Yes | No | Partially |
| Uses Main Liquidity | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Full Anonymity | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Execution Speed | Fast | Fast | Variable | Slower |
Hidden Orders vs. Alternative Solutions
Traders seeking execution privacy have traditionally relied on three approaches, each with significant limitations.
Dark Pools
Traditional finance dark pools operate completely separate order books invisible to the public market. While they provide anonymity, this fragmentation reduces liquidity and often results in lower fill rates. Traders sacrifice execution quality for privacy.
Iceberg Orders
Iceberg orders display only a fraction of the total order size, hiding the full quantity. However, they still reveal partial information, including the existence of a large order at a specific price. Sophisticated traders can detect iceberg patterns and trade against them.
Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP)
TWAP algorithms break large orders into smaller pieces executed over time. This reduces market impact but takes longer, exposes the strategy to detection, and doesn't prevent front-running of individual slices.
Aster's hidden orders combine the anonymity of dark pools with the liquidity access of public markets, addressing the core tradeoffs that plagued previous solutions.
How to Use Hidden Orders on Aster Pro
Hidden orders are available exclusively in Aster Pro mode across BNB Chain, Ethereum, Solana, and Arbitrum. The feature requires a few straightforward steps:
- Connect your wallet to Aster Pro and navigate to your preferred trading pair
- Select contract type, leverage level, and position size
- Choose "Limit Order" as your order type
- Check the "Hidden Order" checkbox before submission
- Confirm the order, which will appear in your Open Orders tab with a visibility icon indicating its hidden status
The order remains completely concealed until a matching counterparty triggers execution. You can monitor pending hidden orders in your account, but no information leaks to the public order book.
Strategic Applications
Hidden orders serve several distinct trading strategies beyond simple privacy.
Accumulation and Distribution
Traders building or unwinding large positions can do so without telegraphing their intentions. A fund accumulating a position over several days won't see progressively worse fills as the market adjusts to their buying pressure.
Defending Price Levels
Market makers and large holders can place hidden orders at key support or resistance levels without revealing defensive positions that might invite attacks.
Arbitrage Protection
Cross-exchange arbitrage strategies often fail when visible orders allow competitors to front-run the arbitrage. Hidden orders preserve the edge by concealing the strategy.
Reducing Slippage on Size
Large orders typically suffer slippage as visible size pushes prices against the trader. Hidden orders eliminate this information leakage, potentially improving execution prices significantly on substantial positions.
Limitations and Considerations
Hidden orders aren't universally superior to visible orders. Several factors merit consideration.
No Price Improvement Signals
Visible limit orders can attract counterparties by signaling willingness to trade at specific prices. Hidden orders sacrifice this signaling benefit for privacy.
Execution Uncertainty
Without visibility, traders can't gauge how their hidden orders compare to current market conditions or adjust based on order book dynamics.
Pro Mode Requirement
Hidden orders require Aster Pro mode, which involves more complexity than Simple Mode's streamlined interface. Traders must be comfortable with advanced order management.
Trust in Matching Engine
While hidden from public view, orders remain visible to Aster's matching engine. Traders must trust the platform's infrastructure and operational security.
The Broader Privacy Trend
Aster's hidden orders represent one component of a larger shift toward privacy-preserving DeFi infrastructure. The platform's roadmap includes Aster Chain, a Layer 1 blockchain incorporating zero-knowledge proofs for fully anonymized trades with on-chain verifiability.
According to The Defiant, industry experts see potential for further privacy innovations. Shutter Network's Head of Product suggested threshold fully homomorphic encryption could eventually enable even stronger privacy guarantees while maintaining market fairness.
The tension between transparency and privacy in DeFi continues evolving. Hidden orders offer a practical middle ground: traders gain execution privacy while markets retain the liquidity benefits of centralized order books.
Trading with Privacy on LeveX
For traders who prefer the reliability of established infrastructure while accessing tokens like ASTER, LeveX offers both spot and futures markets with competitive fees starting at 0.02% maker and 0.06% taker.
Hidden orders mark a significant evolution in decentralized trading infrastructure, giving sophisticated traders tools previously available only on centralized platforms. This privacy advantage factors into ASTER's price outlook as the platform competes for market share against established players. Whether this privacy-first approach becomes the new standard depends on adoption and continued development across the perpetual DEX landscape. For now, Aster has established a meaningful competitive advantage for traders who value discretion as much as execution quality.
Explore more about perpetual trading mechanics in our Crypto in a Minute educational series, or learn how futures trading works on LeveX.