Lighter Gears Up for Airdrop

Denis Omelchenko & yyc trader
December 22, 2025

gm, Defiers!

Today’s big story:

Decentralized perpetuals exchange Lighter is preparing for its highly anticipated token launch and airdrop, with LIT trading at a pre-market valuation above $3 billion.

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Today’s Big Story

Lighter’s Pre-market Valuation Tops $3B Ahead of Airdrop

Decentralized perpetuals exchange Lighter’s highly anticipated airdrop may be imminent after the team signaled it could be just around the corner.

In a Discord announcement on Dec. 21, a team member revealed that an allocation form was added to the Lighter interface. Users can designate up to four wallets for the expected token distribution until Friday, Dec. 26.

Lighter’s Discord server announcement. Source: Discord

On Polymarket, bettors assign roughly a 70 % chance to the airdrop occurring next week on Dec. 29, while also pricing in a 12 % chance it may not happen this year at all.

Polymarket bets on Lighter’s TGE date. Source: Polymarket

Speculators on pre‑markets have driven Lighter’s LIT token up, with current prices implying a fully diluted valuation (FDV) above $3 billion, according to Whales Market data. On HyENA’s pre-market, LIT is trading at $3.38.

For comparison, Hyperliquid’s FDV at its token generation event (TGE) in November 2024 was around $4 billion, while Aster’s token debuted in September 2025 at roughly $7 billion.

The airdrop would complete the top three decentralized exchanges offering their own native tokens, following Hyperliquid with HYPE and Aster with ASTER.

Perp DEXs by 30d volume. Source: DefiLlama

Lighter is one of the few perpetuals DEXs that charges no trading fees for standard accounts. This feature, along with airdrop speculation, has helped it lead in trading volume over the past 30 days, with more than $233 billion, per DefiLlama data.

Last month, the platform raised $68 million in a funding round led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital, valuing the exchange at about $1.5 billion.

Denis, staff reporter at The Defiant

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