Lighter perpetual futures DEX launched its LIT token

Lighter, one of the newly launched perpetual futures DEXs, announced the launch of its native token. LIT will start trading on Lighter and soon spread to other exchanges. 

Lighter announced the generation and trading launch of its native LIT token after building up its trading volumes in the past few months. Lighter was one of the perpetual futures DEXs to emerge in 2025, boosted by the success of Hyperliquid and Aster. 

The exchange announced the Lighter Infrastructure Token (LIT), which would align the incentives within the ecosystem. As Cryptopolitan reported earlier, Lighter had already announced the year-end airdrop to its users.

LIT is one of the tokens that will distribute the value of the ecosystem from the start. The model is based on the approach of Hyperliquid, which uses HYPE to benefit token holders. 

“Revenues from our core DEX product as well as future products and services can be tracked in real-time on chain and will be allocated between growth and buybacks depending on market conditions,” explained the exchange team. 

The newly launched LIT token is still in the earliest stage of price discovery and has yet to set up a price range. LIT will be distributed to token holders based on the points accrued from two farming seasons in 2025. 

LIT will be distributed to holders directly

The launch of LIT was anticipated by the end of the year. The token will distribute 25% of the total supply to point farmers, fully unlocked and ready for trading. Soon after the launch, LIT traded at $2.62, later dipping to $2.30. LIT then recovered and started accruing gains at over $2.80. 

Lighter entered its first stage of price discovery, with early trading pairs on BingX taking most of the volume. | Source: CoinMarketCap.

The initial price discovery for the token is happening only on BingX, while still waiting for decentralized pairs and trading on Lighter itself. 

The LIT token launch was widely anticipated, in addition to Lighter’s roadmap for 2026. LIT arrives after a year of contentious new token events, where most of the launched assets crashed. 

LIT may also attempt to perform in a way similar to HYPE by encouraging holding. However, even HYPE has been pressured by profit-taking. 

Lighter becomes trading volume leader

The Lighter DEX only locks in around $1.4B in value, much smaller compared to other DEXs. The platform is among the leaders in daily volumes, reaching $4.7B ahead of its LIT token launch. 

Lighter emerged as one of the perpetual futures DEXs with the highest trading volumes, passing even Hyperliquid and Aster. | Source: Dune Analytics.

Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter were the three exchanges to emerge in 2025 with the highest level of liquidity. Recently, Lighter flipped Aster with a higher TVL metric and more active trading volumes. The Lighter activity increased as the platform was preparing for its TGE. 

At that time, Hyperliquid barely reached $2.5B in trading volumes. Lighter is yet to prove that the volume is organic and linked to real entities. The volumes on Lighter have been growing for the whole of 2025, though incentivized by the point farming program. 

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