Panic Engulfs ASTER Following DeFiLlama Delisting: Whales and Smart Money Flee En Masse

ASTER's foundation crumbles as DeFiLlama pulls the plug—sparking a mass exodus that's rewriting the project's future in real-time.

The Great Unstaking

Whales aren't just dipping toes—they're executing full-scale retreats. Massive positions unwind across decentralized exchanges as liquidity pools thin to dangerous levels. The smart money that once championed ASTER now races for exits, leaving retail holders holding the bag.

Trust Evaporates Overnight

DeFiLlama's delisting hammer drops like a guillotine. Without the credibility stamp, ASTER's valuation faces existential questions. The metrics that once attracted investors now read like warning signs—trading volume plummets while sell pressure mounts.

Contagion Spreads

Neighboring protocols feel the tremors as fear permeates the ecosystem. The classic crypto cycle repeats—early investors cash out, latecomers panic, and everyone wonders why they trusted anonymous developers with their retirement funds.

ASTER's roadmap now leads to one destination: redemption or oblivion. The market's verdict arrives not in quarterly reports but in block-by-block transactions—and currently, the narrative looks brutally bearish.

A bigger issue

Tuesday morning before market open, Cleveland-Cliffs announced that it WOULD float a fresh issue of senior unsecured guaranteed notes (a type of corporate bond). Then, very shortly after market close that day, it announced it had upsized the issue by nearly 40%.

Image source: Getty Images.

In the initial announcement, Cleveland-Cliffs said the flotation would consist of $200 million aggregate principal amount of such notes maturing in 2034. This was to be an extension of a previous issue of such securities and would pay the same interest rate of just under 7.63%.

In the follow-up to the announcement, Cleveland-Cliffs said it was boosting the aggregate principal amount to $275 million. These are to be issued at a price of almost 102.8% of their principal amount, to land at an implied yield of slightly below 7% for investors.

The company said it will use its proceeds from the issue to retire debt incurred under an asset-based lending facility.

Borrowing to grow

Owning, running, and maintaining a huge steel making operation is a vastly expensive undertaking, so debt financing is typically necessary in the industry. That, plus the fact that Cleveland-Cliffs loaded up on it significantly with its 2024 acquisition of Canadian peer Stelco has pushed its total long-term debt past $7.7 billion (as of the end of June).

The new flotation will be just a drop in that bucket, yet it shows that investors have confidence in the company to satisfy such financial obligations.