Capital is pouring into the perpetuals trading platform as its closed beta draws to an end.
Decentralized perpetuals exchange Lighter is attracting increased inflows as it prepares to close its private beta phase and open to the public.
The exchange crossed $350 million in total value locked (TVL) on Sept 3, and is at $375 million today, representing a 90% increase from the beginning of August.
While there is no set date for the public launch, the project posted on X on July 31, “Lighter Private Beta Ending Soon!”. Currently, the platform is gated by invite codes, which users receive based on trading activity and total points earned.
Lighter also introduced pre-launch derivatives on Aug. 26, debuting with World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token. LINEA and XPL pre-markets are also available on Lighter, but record significantly lower volume than competing venues such as Hyperliquid. Lighter recorded $1.1 million in XPL pre-market trading volume over the last 24 hours, compared to Hyperliquid’s $23 million, despite a controversial market manipulation incident on Hyperliquid’s XPL perps.
Traders have also been using Lighter’s liquidity provider vault, LLP, to earn yield on their profits and stablecoins. The pool allows variable deposit sizes based on a user’s total points on Lighter, but contributed funds are currently earning 68% APR with $145 million deposited, making up 38.5% of the platform’s TVL.
