Swap LIT at the Best Rate

What is LIT?

LIT is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum issued by Elliot Technologies, the company behind the Lighter exchange. Lighter is a decentralized perpetual futures venue built as an application-specific zero-knowledge rollup: order matching, margin checks and liquidations run off-chain, are proved in zero-knowledge circuits, and are verified by contracts on Ethereum. The public mainnet opened on 2 October 2025 after a private beta that began in January of that year.

The token came later. Lighter ran two seasons of a points program through 2025, then held its token generation event on 30 December 2025, airdropping a quarter of the supply to points participants. Unlike most exchange tokens, LIT is not needed to trade: standard accounts pay no maker or taker fees at all.

How LIT works

Lighter's design goal is verifiable execution. Every operation of the matching engine produces a proof that is checked on Ethereum, so the operator cannot silently reorder or misprice trades, and account data is posted to Ethereum so users can exit even if the operator disappears. L2Beat classifies the system as a Stage 0 rollup whose contracts can still be upgraded by company multisigs.

LIT plugs into that exchange through staking. Staked LIT gates access to the Lighter Liquidity Pool, the venue's market-making vault, at up to 10 USDC of deposits per staked token. Staking also raises fee discounts for premium accounts, and unstaking is subject to a three-day lockup.

LIT supply and tokenomics

The supply is fixed at one billion LIT. Half is allocated to the ecosystem: 25% went to the launch airdrop and another 25% is reserved for future seasons and partnerships. The team holds 26% and investors 24%, both subject to a one-year cliff from the token generation event and three years of linear vesting after it, so insider unlocks begin in late December 2026 and run into 2029.

There is no inflation on top of the cap. Supply pressure moves the other way: the exchange routes trading fee revenue into LIT buybacks executed as daily 24-hour time-weighted purchases, per the project's documentation.

Who builds LIT

Lighter was founded by Vladimir Novakovski, a former Citadel engineer and trader who pivoted his previous startup, Lunchclub, into the exchange in 2022. The operating company is Elliot Technologies, Inc., a US corporation. In November 2025 the company announced a 68 million dollar round led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital, with Robinhood among the participants, at a reported valuation of about 1.5 billion dollars.

How LIT is governed

LIT carries no governance rights. There is no DAO, no governance forum and no token vote over protocol parameters; the company sets listing, fee and staking policy. Contract control sits with company multisigs: a network governor can upgrade contracts behind a 21-day delay, and a separate security council multisig can shorten that delay, which is why L2Beat flags upgrade risk on the project.

What people use LIT for

Staking is the token's working surface today, and the exchange itself stays free for standard accounts whether or not a trader holds LIT.

• Stake LIT to unlock deposits into the Lighter Liquidity Pool, at up to 10 USDC per staked token.
• Stake to increase maker and taker fee discounts on premium accounts.
• Earn staking rewards funded by token purchases rather than new issuance.
• Unstake with a three-day lockup when exiting.

LIT risks and considerations

The main risks are operational and structural rather than token-mechanical. The rollup's contracts are upgradeable by company multisigs, the sequencer is centralized, and price feeds rely on the operator reporting oracle data honestly; the design compensates with a forced-exit path that lets users withdraw with proofs if the operator stops processing requests for 14 days.

Three quarters of the supply was locked at launch, and the team and investor cliff ends in late December 2026, which begins three years of steady unlocks. The token is also offered under geographic restrictions: the terms of service, updated in December 2025, exclude persons in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and other listed jurisdictions.