The perpetuals exchange is expanding beyond derivatives and into spot asset trading, beginning with ETH.
Lighter, the leading decentralized perpetuals exchange by volume, is set to launch its highly anticipated spot trading feature this week, debuting with ETH.
“We’re excited to introduce Spot on Lighter…Later this week, we’ll enable spot trading and begin rolling out additional markets,” the team said on X.
The move is Lighter’s latest salvo in the perp DEX wars as it competes with Hyperliquid, which typically processes between $1.5 billion and $3 billion in spot volume per week. Lighter flipped Hyperliquid in terms of perpetual volumes earlier this quarter after it unveiled a $68 million raise led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital.
Lighter confirmed via an X space over the summer that spot listings would be coming to the exchange ahead of its token generation event (TGE), which is likely to take place by the end of the year.
Over the last 30 days, Lighter recorded $297 billion in perpetual volume, compared to Hyperliquid’s $250 billion. It is worth noting that the Hyperliquid volumes do not account for the leading HIP-3 markets deployed by TradeXYZ, which add another $10 billion to the Hyperliquid ecosystem’s tally.
Lighter’s success is likely driven by a combination of points speculation and the exchange’s zero-fee system, which makes the platform a go-to destination for high-frequency traders and market makers.
While the exchange’s key metrics continue to grow, the over-the-counter (OTC) value of Lighter points has fallen steadily, reaching $77 per point as of yesterday, compared to $100 per point at the beginning of October.
