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Aster restricted countries: where Aster works in 2026

Aster is restricted in 11 of the 195 countries we cover, limited in 24 and available in 160. Restricted countries include North Korea, United Kingdom, Canada, Syria, China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and 3 more.

Research by CryptoRestrictions Research Desk
Fact-checked by CryptoRestrictions Editorial Review
Data verified 07 Nov 2026
Page updated 17 Oct 2026
How we verify

World map of Aster across 195 countries: restricted in 11, all named in its terms (Canada, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, UK, US and Venezuela); limited in 24, where only prediction trading is barred, such as Germany, France and Japan; available in 160.

Key findings

Every country where Aster is restricted is named in its own terms: the US, Canada, the UK, China, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Syria.
In our geo-access test of 16 October 2026 the trading app blocked only the US and Syria by IP address. Seven other prohibited countries, among them the UK, Canada, China and Russia, loaded with no barrier.
Aster's prediction trading has its own list of 34 countries and four regions. In 24 countries the terms allow perps but prediction orders are rejected, among them Germany, France, Japan, Australia and Singapore, so we record them as limited.
Aster's prohibited list is the same 11 countries Lighter names, yet Lighter's app blocked 13 places in our test against Aster's two. None of the four perps DEXs we compare asks for identity documents.
Aster holds no licence anywhere. France's AMF blacklisted asterdex.com in February 2026, and the Seychelles regulator said in November 2025 that Aster has no authorisation or link there.

Where is Aster restricted?

Aster is restricted in 11 of the 195 countries we cover, every one of them named in its terms: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, China, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Syria.

The list sits in section 2.1 of Aster’s terms and conditions (last updated 25 February 2026), which bar anyone who lives in, is located in or is incorporated in a “Prohibited Jurisdiction”. The ban extends to places under comprehensive country-wide or regional sanctions, or designated as “terrorist supporting” by the UN, the EU, the UK or the US, but every country we track that fits those words is already named. The terms say nothing about citizenship, so an Iranian living in Germany is not barred by nationality.

Two things set Aster’s list apart from most exchanges: it names three large regulated markets, the US, Canada and the UK, and the whole of Ukraine rather than only its occupied regions. The trading app enforces only part of it. In our test it refused US and Syrian IP addresses and let the other seven we could reach load as normal. The full list is below.

Category	Countries	Context	Last verified
Geographic block6 countries	Canada China Cuba Russia Ukraine United Kingdom	Named as a prohibited jurisdiction in Aster's terms; the trading app loaded with no barrier in our geo-access test.	17 Oct 2026
Geographic block2 countries	Syria United States	Named as a prohibited jurisdiction in Aster's terms; the trading app also refused this location in our geo-access test.	17 Oct 2026
Geographic block2 countries	Iran North Korea	Named as a prohibited jurisdiction in Aster's terms.	17 Oct 2026
Geographic block1 country	Venezuela	Named as a prohibited jurisdiction in Aster's terms (updated 25 February 2026); the trading app loaded with no barrier in our geo-access test.	19 Oct 2026

Where is Aster limited?

Aster is limited in 24 countries where its prediction trading is closed but perpetuals and spot are open, among them Germany, France, Japan, Australia and Singapore.

Prediction trading has its own rules. Section 2.4 of the prediction user agreement (updated 2 June 2026) bars users in 34 countries and four regions, from Australia to Zimbabwe, plus Ontario, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. Aster’s service region page repeats the list and says orders from those places “will be rejected”, based on IP geolocation. Eight of the 34 are already prohibited by the terms and two, Taiwan and the US Minor Outlying Islands, are territories outside our 195; the other 24 are the ones recorded here, under the rule we apply to every platform: a product the platform itself refuses in a country makes the country limited, with that product restricted. France also carries a warning: the AMF put asterdex.com on its blacklist of unauthorised crypto derivatives sites on 27 February 2026.

Aster gives no reason for any country on the prediction list. It mixes nine large markets in Europe and Asia-Pacific with 15 countries in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, 13 of them under UN, UK, EU or US sanctions. Our test cannot see this cut: the app showed its Predictions tab everywhere, even in the blocked US, because the check happens when an order is placed. The groups are below.

Category	Countries	Context	Last verified
Partial service24 countries	Australia Belarus Belgium Burundi Central African Republic DR Congo Ethiopia Germany Iraq Italy Japan Lebanon Libya Myanmar Nicaragua Poland Singapore Somalia South Sudan Sudan Taiwan Thailand Yemen Zimbabwe	Prediction trading is barred here under Aster's prediction rules; perps and spot are not.	17 Oct 2026
Partial service1 country	France	Prediction trading is barred here; perps and spot are not. The AMF blacklisted asterdex.com in February 2026 for offering crypto derivatives without authorisation.	17 Oct 2026

Where is Aster available?

Aster is available in the other 160 of the 195 countries we cover, from the Netherlands and Spain to South Korea, Nigeria and Brazil.

None of them rests on a licence, because Aster holds none. In 101 the terms and prediction rules do not exclude the country and our test loaded the trading app; the other 59 are available under our coverage rule, since no Aster document excludes them and we could not test them. We found no regulator that blocks Aster in any of the 160.

Available means Aster serves the country, not that local law allows leveraged crypto trading. The list is below.

Category	Countries	Context	Last verified
No restriction58 countries	Argentina Austria Bahrain Bangladesh Brazil Bulgaria Chile Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cyprus Czechia Denmark Egypt El Salvador Estonia Finland Ghana Greece Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Israel Kazakhstan Kenya Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malaysia Mexico Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria Norway Pakistan Panama Peru Philippines Portugal Qatar Romania Saudi Arabia Slovakia Slovenia South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Arab Emirates Uruguay Vietnam	Not on Aster's prohibited-jurisdictions list; the trading app loaded in our geo-access test.	07 Nov 2026
No restriction1 country	Georgia	Not on Aster's prohibited-jurisdictions list (terms of 25 February 2026), and the trading app loaded in our geo-access test.	19 Oct 2026
No restriction1 country	Dominican Republic	Not on Aster's prohibited-jurisdictions list, and the trading app loaded in our geo-access test.	07 Nov 2026
No restriction1 country	Serbia	Not on Aster's prohibited-jurisdictions list; the trading app loaded in our test.	20 Oct 2026
No restriction1 country	Malta	Not on Aster's prohibited-jurisdictions list.	17 Oct 2026

Where do Aster’s visitors come from?

Prohibited countries sit near the top of both traffic estimators we checked: the United States and Russia lead one, and the US and Canada are in the other’s top five.

Similarweb puts the US at 17.96% of visits in September 2026 and Russia at 14.02%, ahead of Japan, Germany and Austria. Semrush counts 1.1 million visits in September, 21.54% more than in August, led by Bangladesh at 19.73%, then Japan, the US, Canada and Germany.

The shares are estimates and the two tools disagree on scale: Similarweb counts about 763,000 visits over three months, Semrush 1.1 million in one. Russia and Canada load the app without a barrier, so their visitors meet only the terms, not a block.

Aster geo-access test: what we saw from 133 places

The trading app blocked 2 of the 133 places we tested by IP address: the United States and Syria.

We ran the test ourselves on 16 October 2026. A browser with a VPN connected to one place at a time and loaded the asterdex.com home page and the BTCUSDT perpetual in the trading app, each time in a fresh private window with no cookies and no wallet connected. Banners were never accepted and bot checks never solved, and every run saved the page text and a screenshot.

Of the 133 places, 129 are among our 195 countries and four are territories: Hong Kong, Macau, Puerto Rico and Taiwan. 61 runs used servers in the country and 72 used virtual locations, IP addresses registered to a country but hosted elsewhere. The app places visitors by where their IP address is registered: a US address was blocked, while Venezuelan and Dominican addresses hosted in Miami were not.

Trading app of Aster loaded from United States: A US address: the trading app shows a red banner and a block over the chart; only withdrawals are allowed — **What the Aster app showed us, place by place**Screenshots from our geo-access test, 16 Oct 2026. Scroll sideways or use the arrows.

A US visitor sees a red banner, “You’re accessing ASTER from a restricted jurisdiction. Only withdrawals are available”, and a box over the chart saying the service is not available in the region, though positions can still be closed. Syria got the box without the banner. Puerto Rico, a US territory, loaded with no barrier.

The written list and the block barely overlap. Seven prohibited countries, the UK, Canada, China, Russia, Ukraine, Cuba and Venezuela, loaded the full app, so for them the terms are the only control; Iran and North Korea we could not reach. The full result for every place is below.

"Service not available in your region"
Trading app · 2 countries: Syria, United States

Source: CryptoRestrictions geo-access test, 16 Oct 2026. Every other country loaded both pages with no restriction message.

All 133 test results, country by country

Aster geo-access test results by country

Sortable; "Our status" is the verified dataset status, not the test result

Country	Location	Home page	Trading app	Our status
Afghanistan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Albania	In country	Open	Open	Available
Algeria	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Andorra	In country	Open	Open	Available
Angola	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Argentina	In country	Open	Open	Available
Australia	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Austria	In country	Open	Open	Available
Azerbaijan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Bahrain	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Bangladesh	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Belarus	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Belgium	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Bhutan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Bosnia and Herzegovina	In country	Open	Open	Available
Brazil	In country	Open	Open	Available
Brunei	In country	Open	Open	Available
Bulgaria	In country	Open	Open	Available
Cambodia	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Cameroon	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Canada	In country	Open	Open	Restricted
Chad	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Chile	In country	Open	Open	Available
China	In country	Open	Open	Restricted
Colombia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Comoros	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
DR Congo	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Costa Rica	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Côte d'Ivoire	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Croatia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Cuba	Virtual	Open	Open	Restricted
Cyprus	In country	Open	Open	Available
Czechia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Denmark	In country	Open	Open	Available
Dominican Republic	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Ecuador	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Egypt	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
El Salvador	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Eritrea	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Estonia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Ethiopia	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Finland	In country	Open	Open	Available
France	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Georgia	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Germany	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Ghana	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Greece	In country	Open	Open	Available
Guatemala	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Guinea	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Honduras	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Hong Kong	In country	Open	Open	Available
Hungary	In country	Open	Open	Available
Iceland	In country	Open	Open	Available
India	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Indonesia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Iraq	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Ireland	In country	Open	Open	Available
Israel	In country	Open	Open	Available
Italy	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Japan	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Jordan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Kazakhstan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Kenya	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Kuwait	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Laos	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Latvia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Libya	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Liechtenstein	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Lithuania	In country	Open	Open	Available
Luxembourg	In country	Open	Open	Available
Macao	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Malaysia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Mauritania	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Mauritius	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Mexico	In country	Open	Open	Available
Moldova	In country	Open	Open	Available
Monaco	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Mongolia	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Montenegro	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Morocco	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Nepal	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Netherlands	In country	Open	Open	Available
New Zealand	In country	Open	Open	Available
Nicaragua	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Nigeria	In country	Open	Open	Available
North Macedonia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Norway	In country	Open	Open	Available
Oman	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Pakistan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Panama	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Peru	In country	Open	Open	Available
Philippines	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Poland	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Portugal	In country	Open	Open	Available
Puerto Rico	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Qatar	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Romania	In country	Open	Open	Available
Russia	Virtual	Open	Open	Restricted
Rwanda	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Saudi Arabia	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Senegal	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Serbia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Singapore	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Slovakia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Slovenia	In country	Open	Open	Available
Somalia	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
South Africa	In country	Open	Open	Available
South Korea	In country	Open	Open	Available
South Sudan	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Spain	In country	Open	Open	Available
Sri Lanka	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Sudan	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Sweden	In country	Open	Open	Available
Switzerland	In country	Open	Open	Available
Syria	Virtual	Open	Blocked	Restricted
Taiwan	In country	Open	Open	Limited
Tajikistan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Tanzania	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Thailand	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited
Togo	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Tunisia	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Turkey	In country	Open	Open	Available
Turkmenistan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Uganda	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Ukraine	In country	Open	Open	Restricted
United Arab Emirates	In country	Open	Open	Available
United Kingdom	In country	Open	Open	Restricted
United States	In country	Open	Blocked	Restricted
Uruguay	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Uzbekistan	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Venezuela	Virtual	Open	Open	Restricted
Vietnam	Virtual	Open	Open	Available
Yemen	Virtual	Open	Open	Limited

Source: CryptoRestrictions geo-access test, 16 Oct 2026. Virtual: an IP address registered to the country, served from a server elsewhere.

How Aster compares with other perps DEXs

Aster’s list is not its own: Lighter names the same 11 countries in its terms, in the same order, with the same sanctions wording. The difference is at the door. Lighter’s app refused 13 places in our test, Aster’s two.

We compared Aster with three other decentralised perpetuals exchanges we track, Hyperliquid, Lighter and Jupiter, using our dataset for statuses and our geo-access tests of 14 to 16 October 2026 for blocks. None of the four asks for identity documents to trade.

Three patterns stand out. Aster and Lighter are the only two that bar Canada, the UK and all of Ukraine outright: Hyperliquid excludes only Ontario and the occupied regions and cuts outcome markets in the UK, and Jupiter leaves the UK and Canada open. Hyperliquid enforces at the door more than its terms suggest, blocking five places, Saudi Arabia among them, though its terms name only the US and Ontario. And Jupiter, restricted in 18 of our countries, blocked none of the 61 places we tested, the US included. The not-verified counts for Lighter and Jupiter shrink as we rebuild their pages.

Aster licences and registrations

Aster holds no licence or registration anywhere that we could find, and its terms do not name the company behind it.

The terms are governed by Hong Kong law and say Aster does not operate or control the underlying blockchains or smart contracts. Two regulators have spoken about it, neither with a ban. France’s AMF added asterdex.com to its blacklist of crypto derivatives sites on 27 February 2026 for offering financial services or products without authorisation. On 20 November 2025 the Seychelles FSA answered third-party sites claiming a Seychelles link: Aster has never been authorised under its virtual asset law, is not a Seychelles company and “has no Nexus to the Seychelles”.

The app is also not the only way in. Aster’s service region page says countries marked “frontend UI restricted” are blocked only on the Aster front end, “the API itself is not restricted”, though no country on its current list carries that mark, and its public API docs describe no location check. Our statuses describe what Aster’s own documents and app allow.

Aster and MiCA in the EU

Aster has no MiCA authorisation: no Aster entity appears in ESMA’s register of crypto-asset service providers, which we checked on 17 October 2026.

Whether a decentralised exchange needs one is still open. MiCA says in recital 22 that services “provided in a fully decentralised manner without any intermediary” fall outside it. No EU regulator has blocked Aster that we found, the French blacklist aside, which is why its perps count as open across the EEA, unlike the centralised exchanges that closed new EEA accounts at the MiCA deadline.

Prediction trading is another matter. Aster bars it in five EEA states, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, and serves it in the other 25 we cover. Hyperliquid draws a similar line with its own outcome markets, which its app hides in seven EEA states, and both keep perpetuals open there.

Is Aster available in the US?

No. The United States is the first Prohibited Jurisdiction in the terms, it is on the prediction list too, and the trading app blocked our US IP address. Aster has no US company or registration, and the ban covers every state.

Aster availability by US state

Restricted

We found no CFTC, SEC or Justice Department action against Aster. The US block is a front-end one: a US visitor sees prices and the order book, but only withdrawals and closing positions are allowed. Aster still lists perpetuals on US stocks such as Apple and Tesla, which US residents may not trade under its terms.

Aster regulators and incidents

Aster dates from March 2025, when Astherus and APX Finance became one exchange, according to its product release log. Its scrutiny has come more from data than from regulators. On 25 September 2025 its XPL perpetual spiked far above the spot price, and Aster said afterwards that “all affected users have received reimbursement” in USDT, Decrypt reported. On 5 October 2025 DefiLlama delisted Aster’s perp volume because it could not check it for wash trading, then restored it on 20 October at Aster’s request while calling the figures “still a black box”.

Aster KYC and identity verification

Aster asks for no identity documents to start trading: you connect a wallet, or log in with an email address that creates one, and sign a message.

The wallet login guide names Rabby, MetaMask, Binance Wallet and any WalletConnect wallet, and the email login sends a six-digit code and generates a new wallet address, with USDT deposits on Arbitrum only. The terms still reserve the right to run “limited identity verification procedures” and to refuse service to anyone who does not comply, and they make you promise that your stated location is accurate and that you will not get around location limits.

So the only checks Aster applies are by IP address: the front-end block in a few places and the order check for prediction trading. The prediction agreement adds that a VPN does not lift the ban if you are really in a listed place, and uses your wallet address as the only account identifier.

Aster verification history

We found no record that Aster has ever asked users for identity documents, and no announced plan to start. What has changed is the location layer: the February 2026 terms set the 11 prohibited countries, and the June 2026 prediction rules added the second list, enforced when an order is placed.

What if Aster is restricted where you live?

It depends on the country: of the 21 other platforms we track, 11 are available in Venezuela and 9 in China, but only one in Cuba, Iran and North Korea.

Using Aster from a prohibited country is not an option under the terms, which bar any means of getting around location limits, and the app’s light enforcement does not change that. What is left is a platform allowed to serve you where you live.

In the US the field narrows to one available platform, Uniswap, a DeFi protocol, with ten more limited. In Ukraine, which Aster bars outright, 18 platforms are limited, mostly because they exclude only the occupied regions.

For a country-by-country comparison of exchanges, with residency rules and licences side by side, see our guide to exchange alternatives by country.

Aster funds, fees, tax and the terms

Questions the report above does not answer, from Aster's terms, its docs and its own data.

What happens to my funds if I move to a prohibited country?

The terms ask you to update your information promptly if your residency or location changes, and let Aster suspend access without notice. They say Aster provides no custodial services for your assets. In our test, the US block still let a visitor close positions and withdraw funds.

What does trading on Aster cost?

On the main crypto perpetuals in Pro mode, makers pay nothing and takers pay 0.04%, lower at higher VIP tiers. The one-click 1001x mode charges 0.08% to open or close below 500x leverage, and a fee on profits above that.

Is there an insurance fund?

Yes, for Pro mode. The liquidation docs say a position that hits its bankruptcy price passes to the insurance fund, which covers any negative balance. Aster publishes no figure for its size, and the terms do not mention it.

Who pays tax on Aster trades?

You do. The terms make you solely responsible for working out and paying any taxes on your crypto transactions and holdings.

Which law governs the Aster terms?

Hong Kong law. Disputes go to arbitration at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, with one arbitrator and a class action waiver. You must be at least 18 to use Aster.

How big is Aster?

On 17 October 2026 Aster's futures API listed 605 perpetual markets open for trading, and DefiLlama put the value locked in its contracts at $735 million, excluding staking, most of it on BNB Chain.

Answers cite the sources on this page; confirm with the platform before relying on them.

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