The Tutorial (TUT) token surged 10 times in price after Aster DEX listed perpetual futures contracts on Aug. 6, offering up to five times leverage and opening a new speculation channel for the asset. The move accelerated through a series of short liquidations and rising trading volume.
The listing shifted TUT from a spot-only asset to one targeted by leveraged positioning, enabling price movements independent of spot demand.
TUT reached an all-time high on Aug. 9, according to CoinMarketCap. Daily trading volume increased sharply, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of dollars in liquidations.
The price action fits a short squeeze: traders holding short positions faced rapid mark-to-market losses, forcing them to post additional collateral or close at a loss. Those forced closures generated buy orders that pushed price higher, triggering liquidations of new short positions and cycling back into further buying.
Leveraged transactions do not account for the entire move, but elevated trading volume and liquidation data confirm they drove a significant portion of the rally.
A notable characteristic of the TUT move is the ratio of trading volume to market cap. The token's 24-hour volume reached roughly five times its total market capitalization—a figure that signals short-term leveraged activity rather than sustained demand. For low-cap assets with active perp markets, a large share of volume typically originates from leveraged positions rather than organic buying.
On-chain data shows TUT supply is highly concentrated. The top five addresses control a majority of supply, with the two largest individual wallets accounting for a substantial share.
Over the past eight hours, one trader deposited a significant sum into Aster DEX and opened a two times leveraged long position on TUT, pointing to continued speculative interest through Aster's perp offering.
Aster DEX is an on-chain perpetual trading platform built on concentrated liquidity market maker (CLMM) architecture. Liquidity providers earn trading fees and protocol rewards by deploying capital within specific price ranges.
