On February 3rd, PANews reported that Aster CEO Leonard has officially responded to the ongoing FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding the project. He stated that the allegations circulating are "completely false" and constitute "unsubstantiated and malicious manipulation of public opinion." Regarding allegations of "sell-offs, CZ's involvement, and whether the project is a "liquidity exit," Leonard clarified that CZ is only a project advisor, and the investment from investor Yzi Labs is locked up long-term. Aster is an independently operating project, not controlled or directly operated by CZ or Binance entities. The allegations are "baseless." He also emphasized that token releases and buybacks follow a transparent token economic model, designed to incentivize ecosystem participants rather than facilitate sell-offs. The project recently upgraded its buyback mechanism, implementing daily automatic buybacks on-chain (funds sourced from protocol revenue) to improve transparency and predictability. Leonard provided the following on-chain verifiable data: a cumulative buyback of 254 million tokens; 78 million tokens burned and an equivalent amount relocked to the airdrop pool; and plans to burn all remaining repurchased tokens in the future.

The project's next development priorities include: expanding asset liquidity and accelerating new listings; launching a privacy-first Layer 1 network in March to achieve both transaction verifiability and privacy protection; subsequently launching a staking function for token holders; and optimizing the trading experience and interface design. Token economic model optimization directions include: S6 being the final airdrop, future circulating supply growth will slow; suspending the monthly 1% unlock until staking is implemented; and continuing automatic buybacks (up to 80% of fees will be used for buybacks during S6).