Author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News
The most anticipated player in the derivatives market is finally about to make its debut. A few days ago, the Lighter team’s marketing head leaked rumors that their TGE (Transfer Exchange Token) would take place before the end of the year. With only three days left until 2026, the TGE is highly likely to happen soon. Initial trading will be limited to the Lighter platform, but Coinbase and Bybit have included it in their roadmaps. OKX and Binance have also launched their perpetual contracts ahead of schedule.
Polymarket also provided a forecast, with the latest data showing that the market’s bet on the probability of an airdrop this year has risen to 88%, and the total trading volume of the market has reached $14.85 million.
According to the launchpad event on the exchange MEXC, the LIT IPO will officially end at 9 pm tonight, with a FDV of $1.6 billion and $2 billion respectively.
The airdrop will consist of 25% of the total supply, with no lock-up period.
Lighter is a DEX focused on perpetual contract trading, built on ZK Rollup technology, aiming to provide an efficient and low-cost trading experience. The Lighter airdrop is based on a points system; the second quarter’s points were distributed by December 27, 2025, totaling approximately 12.4 million points, after being cleaned to exclude liquidated positions. The airdrop represents 25% of the total supply, or 250 million LIT, sent directly to eligible wallets without requiring claiming or locking.
Lighter founder and CEO Vladimi specifically mentioned that through anti-fraud algorithms (data science and clustering methods to identify witches), the points of witched accounts will be redistributed to qualified traders. There is an appeal mechanism for witch screening; so far, the number of appeals is lower than expected. Specific algorithm details will not be disclosed to avoid targeted optimization. Lighter is confident in the final witch determination results.
The credit conversion rate is estimated at 20-28 LIT per credit, with a credit value of approximately $11 in over-the-counter (OTC) trading. The community will allocate 50% of the total, with the remaining 25% earmarked for future airdrops, partnerships, and grants. The Lighter team’s marketing lead stated that TGE will launch simultaneously with the airdrop, and there will be no paid listing on CEXs.
The total supply of the LIT token is 1 billion, with 50% allocated to the community, including the initial airdrop and future incentives. LIT is neither equity nor a dividend-paying token. Therefore, transaction fees generated by the protocol will not be used to distribute dividends or interest to investors, but will instead flow back into the protocol itself for ecosystem expansion, product growth, and most importantly, token buybacks.
The remaining portion will be allocated to the team, investors, and ecosystem development. Investor shares will be locked for 3 years and released linearly to reduce early selling pressure. A dual-token/equity structure will not be used in the future.
LIT is designed to capture protocol value, including token buybacks through protocol fees, a staking mechanism, and access to exclusive features. Protocol fees primarily come from professional market makers (MMs) and high-frequency traders; retail investors are permanently exempt from fees.
Currently, Lighter’s perpetual and spot trading zk circuits have been audited and officially open-sourced. The team has released complete verification code, allowing external independent verification of the authenticity and validity of every order placement, cancellation, and liquidation operation of Lighter L2 on Ethereum.
FDV has an 84% probability of exceeding $2 billion.
In November of this year, Lighter defied the trend and completed a $68 million funding round, reaching a valuation of $1.5 billion. The round was led by Ribbit and Founders Fund, with participation from Haun Ventures and Robinhood, among others. Both the amount of funding and the lineup of venture capitalists are quite impressive.
Despite the current bear market, there is still considerable enthusiasm for it. Data from Polymarket shows that there is an over 88% probability that its FDV will exceed $1 billion on the second day after its launch, and an 84% probability that it will exceed $2 billion.
Based on its over $2 billion FDV, its price will be above $2.
For comparison, HYPE’s current FDV is $25 billion, with a trading volume of $24.12 billion over the past 7 days. Aster’s FDV is $5.784 billion, with a trading volume of $21.54 billion over the past 7 days.
Lighter’s trading volume over the past 7 days was $28.387 billion, and its trading volume over the past 24 hours was $2.147 billion, surpassing Aster’s $1.833 billion and HYPE’s $1.33 billion.
According to data from DefiLlama, Lighter’s total TVL has risen to $1.392 billion, with total fee revenue exceeding $100 million this year.
According to Bitget data, the latest LIT perpetual contract price is currently $3.46, with a total FDV exceeding $3 billion. Whether this momentum can be maintained until the airdrop is released remains to be seen.
Jake O, head of OTC trading at Wintermute, wrote, “Lighter TGE will become an important indicator of current market risk appetite, and how the market absorbs the first 25% of the token supply will largely reflect the strength of overall market sentiment.”
