Lighter DEX launched its native LIT token, distributing a 25% airdrop as part of its Token Generation Event (TGE). The LIT token has a total supply of 1 billion, was fully tradeable at launch, and is presented as the core economic layer for Lighter’s on-chain perpetuals ecosystem.
The LIT token supply is fixed at 1,000,000,000 tokens and follows a split designed to reward users while preserving longer-term incentives for insiders. Key allocations are:
For community and ecosystem, there´re will be 50% (500,000,000 LIT), which includes a 25% immediate airdrop (250,000,000 LIT) distributed to eligible participants from two farming seasons in 2025.
In terms of team, 26% (260,000,000 LIT), subject to a one-year lock-up then three-year linear vesting. And for investors, 24% (240,000,000 LIT), subject to the same one-year lock-up and three-year linear vesting.
The airdrop was fully unlocked at launch and tied to points accrued in on-chain farming; some reports indicate roughly 12.5 million points were converted into LIT.
Market reception, utility and strategic context
Trading began with active price discovery and marked volatility. Early prints placed LIT around $2.62, it fell to about $2.30, then recovered above $2.80; pre-market references cited roughly $3.25 and occasional short-lived peaks as high as $7.86 before corrections toward $2.95. Market reports noted that sell pressure from airdrop recipients contributed to the initial volatility.
Polymarket’s prediction market showed a near-certain 97% probability that the launch would occur on the stated date, reflecting strong anticipation among retail traders.
LIT’s utility is framed beyond governance: holders can stake tokens to access improved execution quality, enhanced capital efficiency and yield-oriented products. The protocol intends to track on-chain revenues in real time and allocate proceeds between ecosystem growth initiatives and token buyback programs, a design meant to channel protocol revenue into sustainable value capture for LIT holders.
Strategically, Lighter positions the mainnet and token as an infrastructure play: the public mainnet went live on October 2, 2025, leveraging zero-knowledge (ZK) circuits aimed at delivering centralized-exchange speeds with decentralized security.
The project has disclosed strategic backing from prominent industry names, with partners cited to include Robinhood and Coinbase, and the token’s launch was framed as competitive with established perpetual DEXs such as Hyperliquid and Aster.
