Lighter
Perpetual futures DEX built as a zero-knowledge rollup on Ethereum with verifiable order matching and liquidations.
Security record: 1 incident · 1 own fault · 1 not or partly repaid- Zero-knowledge rollup on Ethereum; matching and liquidations are proven and verified on Ethereum
- Standard accounts trade perps and spot with zero maker and taker fees, with 300 ms taker latency
- Premium accounts pay 0.004% maker and 0.028% taker, with discounts for staking LIT
- Crypto perps plus RWA markets (commodities, equities, FX) that trade 24/7
- Max leverage set per market, up to 50x on BTC, ETH and major FX pairs
Seven criteria on a scale of 10, the fee and market numbers computed from the data. Compare it with other perp DEXs only. How we score
- Taker
- 0%
- Maker
- 0%
- Volume a day
- $1.7B
- Open interest
- $533M
- Rewards 6.0
- LIT live, points seasons ended; LIT staking 6% APR, referral rebates
- Taker fee 10.0
- No taker fee is a 10, 0.07% or more is a 1. A venue that earns from the spread tops out at 7.
- Volume 8.6
- Average a day: $5M is a 1, $5B is a 10, on a log scale. Volume past ten times open interest does not count.
- Safety 8.0
- Mainnet since Jan 2025, ZK proofs on Ethereum, audited by Zellic, Nethermind
- Open interest 9.2
- $1M is a 1, $1B is a 10, on a log scale. Harder to farm than volume.
- Ease 10.0
- iOS and Android apps, no gas per trade, 200+ perps incl. stocks and FX
- Access 8.0
- No KYC or invite; closed to US, Canada, UK, China, Russia, Ukraine
- Open the app at app.lighter.xyz
- Deposit funds through Ethereum
- Trade perps or spot on a free Standard account
- Optional: sign up through a referral link to get one week of Premium fees rebated
- Referral: first week of Premium fees rebated
- Liquidity Partner ProgramWeekly LIT rewards for market makers
- Is a Perp DEX Safe? Custody, Exits and LiquidationsNon-custodial is a label, not an answer. Six questions to ask any perp DEX about custody, exits, reversed fills, liquidation and audits before you deposit.
- Funding Rate Arbitrage Between Perp DEXs: The Real MathA cross-DEX funding hedge earns by the hour and pays its fees up front. How to work out the net, the break-even time and what can break each leg.
- Maker vs Taker Fees on Perp DEXs: What a Trade Really CostsMaker and taker fees explained for farmers: why the fee is charged on the position, why a hedge pays four times, and when a maker order costs more.
- What Is a Funding Rate on a Perp DEX?What a perp funding rate is, who pays whom, how to turn it into a yearly figure, and what it costs or pays a farmer who holds positions for volume.
Free Standard accounts add 300 ms latency to taker orders. Liquidations go to the LLP insurance fund, and positions can be auto-deleveraged. Points and referral rebates are discretionary.
1 incident · 1 own fault · 1 not or partly repaid
Past incidents 1
4.5-hour outage during crash, LLP down about 5%. Right after the 10 to 11 October 2025 market crash, a delayed database expansion and upgrade failed and Lighter was down for about 4.5 hours, after degraded performance during the crash itself. Lighter's post-mortem said 367 users lost over $10K and 38 over $100K; the LLP pool lost about 5% (5.35% per Beosin). Lighter paid compensation in points (250,000 points split between traders, LLP holders and outage-hit users), which The Defiant valued at about $20M; LLP holders criticised their share.
Own faultUsers lost about $25MPartly repaid
Sources: thedefiant.io, cryptotimes.io
From the project’s statements and security coverage. Own fault means the project’s code, servers or keys; third party means a vendor, registrar, oracle or issuer it relies on.
