Lighter TGE is upcoming, and the market expects FDV to exceed $2 billion?

Author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News

The most anticipated protagonist in the derivatives track is finally about to debut. A few days ago, the market manager of the Lighter team leaked rumors that its TGE will take place before the end of the year. With only 3 days left until 2026, its TGE is very likely to happen soon. Initial trading is limited to the Lighter platform, but Coinbase and Bybit have included it in their roadmaps. OKX and Binance also launched its perpetual contracts in advance.

Polymarket has also provided a prediction, with the latest data showing that the market’s betting on the probability of airdrop this year has risen to 88%, with the total trading volume reaching $14.85 million.

The exchange MEXC’s Launchpad event shows that the LIT listing will officially end tonight at 9 PM, with FDV estimates of $1.6 billion and $2.0 billion respectively.

The airdrop amount is 25% of the total supply, with no lock-up

Lighter is a decentralized exchange focused on perpetual contract trading, built on ZK Rollup technology, aiming to provide efficient, low-cost trading experiences. The Lighter airdrop is based on a points system, with the second season points distributed on December 27, 2025. The total points are approximately 12.4 million, after cleaning to exclude wash trading. The airdrop share accounts for 25% of the total supply, i.e., 250 million LIT tokens, sent directly to qualified wallets without claiming or locking.

Lighter’s founder and CEO Vladimi specifically mentioned that through anti-cheating algorithms (using data science and clustering methods to identify witches), the points of witch accounts will be redistributed to qualified traders. There is an appeal mechanism for witch screening, and so far, the number of appeals has been fewer than expected. Specific algorithm details will not be disclosed to prevent targeted optimization. Lighter is confident in the final witch determination results.

The points-to-LIT conversion rate is estimated at 20-28 LIT per point, with the value of points in OTC trading around $11. The overall community receives 50%, with the remaining 25% allocated for future airdrops, partners, and grants. The Lighter team’s market leader stated that the TGE and airdrop will go live simultaneously, and there will be no paid listings on CEXs.

The total supply of the LIT token is 1 billion, with 50% allocated to the community, including initial airdrops and future incentives. LIT is neither equity nor a dividend token. Therefore, protocol-generated fees will not be used to distribute dividends or profits to investors but will flow back into the protocol itself for ecosystem expansion, product growth, and most importantly, token buybacks.

The remaining portion is allocated to the team, investors, and ecosystem development. Investor shares are locked for 3 years with linear release to reduce early selling pressure. In the future, there will be no dual-token or equity structure.

LIT is designed to capture protocol value, including token buybacks through protocol fees, staking mechanisms, and access to exclusive features. Protocol fees mainly come from professional market makers (MM) and high-frequency traders, while retail traders are permanently fee-free.

Currently, Lighter’s perpetual and spot trading zk circuits have completed audits and are officially open source. The team has released complete verification code, allowing external independent verification of every order, cancellation, and settlement operation on Lighter L2 on Ethereum.

Probability of FDV exceeding $2 billion: 84%

In November this year, Lighter completed a $68 million funding round against the market trend, with a valuation of $1.5 billion, led by Ribbit and Founders Fund, with participation from Haun Ventures and Robinhood, among others. Both the funding amount and venture capital lineup are quite impressive.

Although the market is currently in a bear phase, there is still considerable enthusiasm for it. Data from Polymarket shows that the market’s betting on the FDV exceeding $1 billion on the day after launch is over 88%, and the probability of exceeding $2 billion is 84%.

If the FDV exceeds $2 billion, the token 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 7-day trading volume of $21.54 billion.

Lighter’s trading volume over the past 7 days is $28.387 billion, and in the past 24 hours, it reached $2.147 billion, surpassing Aster’s $1.833 billion and HYPE’s $1.33 billion.

According to DefiLlama data, Lighter’s total TVL has risen to $1.392 billion, with total fee income exceeding $10 million this year.

According to Bitget market data, the latest perpetual contract price for LIT is $3.46, with an FDV exceeding $3 billion. Whether this momentum can be maintained until the airdrop remains to be seen.

Wintermute OTC trading head Jake O stated, “Lighter TGE will become an important indicator of current market risk appetite, and how the market digests the initial 25% token supply release will largely reflect the overall market sentiment.”