Starfish Finance Review 2026: Small Astar DEX Built on Balancer V2

Starfish Finance is a decentralized exchange on Astar Network, incubated through the Astar program and listed since November 2022. It describes itself as a DeFi and NFT-Fi hub, combining multi-asset swaps, DOT liquid staking and NFT financing.

The technical base is an enhanced version of the Balancer V2 model. The project also says it uses gamification in the user experience, although the homepage shows little beyond the name.

Scale is the main issue. Total value locked is about $1,369, with a 7-day change of roughly 21 percent, which on such a small base is only a few hundred dollars. Its token is SEAN. The project does not publish audits, fees or team details in the sources reviewed, so the picture is of a small, early-stage product rather than an established venue.

Starfish Finance is an automated market maker. Instead of an order book, users trade against pools of tokens that liquidity providers fund. Prices come from the ratio of assets in a pool, so large trades against small pools move the price a lot.

The project says it builds on an enhanced Balancer V2 model. Balancer-style designs hold many assets in one vault and allow pools with several tokens and custom weights, which is what makes multi-asset swaps possible.

Beyond swaps, the project lists DOT liquid staking, where staked DOT is represented by a token that can be used elsewhere, and NFT-Fi, which aims to bring financing and liquidity to NFT assets. How each of these works in detail is not set out in the sources reviewed.

Swap fees, staking fees and any protocol take rate are not published in the sources reviewed. Users would see the fee for a pool on the swap or pool screens of the app before confirming a trade.

On top of any protocol fee, users pay network gas on Astar and bear slippage, which is likely to be high given the very small pools.

No audits are listed for Starfish Finance, and the team and any bug bounty are not published in the sources reviewed. Smart-contract risk is therefore unquantified. Even though the design borrows from Balancer V2, an enhanced fork can introduce new bugs.

Users keep custody of their assets in their own wallet, but funds in pools or staking contracts are exposed to contract failure, price manipulation in shallow pools and loss from impermanent loss. Regulatory status is not stated. Only use money you can afford to lose.

This is for experienced DeFi users on Astar Network who want to explore niche products such as DOT liquid staking or NFT-Fi and accept high risk. It is a poor fit for anyone needing deep liquidity, audited contracts or published team accountability.