Lighter DEX Volume, TVL, Revenue and Open Interest: Stats, Dashboards and History (September 2026)

Lighter perpetual DEX has processed more than $1.6 trillion in cumulative perpetual volume since its 2025 launch. It peaked at roughly $232 billion in 30-day volume in December 2025, briefly overtaking Hyperliquid, then fell to about $39 billion a month by mid-2026 before rebuilding on Robinhood order flow. TVL sits near $487 million, open interest near $766 million, and annualized protocol revenue is around $26 million before the Circle and Robinhood revenue shares. Below are the numbers people search for, each with its date, plus the live dashboards to check today's figures. Snapshot as of September 2026.

Lighter DEX key stats (September 2026 snapshot)

Volume history

Lighter's volume story has three phases.

Phase 1: invite-only ramp (early to Oct 2025). Points Season 1 attracted market makers and delta-neutral farmers. Daily volume climbed from tens of millions to multiple billions; a $7 billion day was reported while the exchange was still gated.

Phase 2: TGE peak (Nov 2025 to Jan 2026). Public launch in October, the $68 million round in November and the December 30 airdrop pushed 30-day volume to about $232 billion, ahead of Hyperliquid's monthly figure for a short window. Much of it was incentive-driven and highly concentrated in BTC and ETH.

Phase 3: normalization and Robinhood (Feb 2026 onward). With Season 1 rewards distributed, volume fell over 80% to a floor around $39 billion a month, still enough for a stable top-five slot. The July 2026 Robinhood integration added roughly $7.3 billion in its first two months and now contributes 12–17% of daily volume. Sector-wide perp DEX volume fell 30% in a September week; Lighter's share held up better than most because of that retail channel.

For the wash-trading debate around Phase 2, see is Lighter DEX safe?. A ZK proof verifies that matches followed the rules; it does not verify that counterparties were unrelated.

TVL and open interest

TVL (about $487 million) is the USDC and other collateral held in the Lighter rollup contracts on Ethereum, plus LLP deposits. It peaked above $700 million during the farming period. Open interest (about $766 million) is larger than TVL because positions are leveraged; OI/TVL of roughly 1.6x is conservative compared with many CEXs and indicates modest average leverage.

Hyperliquid, for comparison, holds around $5 billion TVL and $10 billion+ OI. Lighter is roughly a tenth of Hyperliquid on both measures while competing on volume at a quarter to a third. See the Lighter DEX comparison with Hyperliquid.

Revenue: how a zero-fee DEX earns $26 million

Lighter's revenue lines, in rough order of size:

1. Premium and Plus account fees from market makers and API traders (0.0028–0.028% taker on their notional).
2. Circle partnership (Feb 2026): a share of yield on the ~$920 million USDC held on the platform, estimated at ~$40 million annualized at early-2026 rates.
3. Liquidation fees (up to 1%) flowing through LLP.
4. Robinhood revenue share (50/50 on the Robinhood Chain deployment).
5. LIT fee credits, which are passed to stakers rather than retained.

DefiLlama's fees and revenue dashboards track the on-chain-observable portion. Full mechanics: Lighter DEX trading fees.

Valuation

Lighter the company was valued at about $1.5 billion in its November 2025 round ($68 million raised, $89 million total). LIT the token trades at a market cap near $1.1 billion and an FDV near $4.5 billion in late September 2026, having roughly doubled during the month on speculation about a US perpetuals opening (Lighter has not filed for CFTC registration) and the Bitwise Lighter Staking ETP listing on Xetra. The 4x gap between market cap and FDV reflects the 500 million team and investor tokens that start unlocking in December 2026. See Lighter DEX tokenomics.

Where to track Lighter data live

There is no dedicated "Lighter DEX screener" beyond the in-app market list and third-party terminals that consume the public API; the Lighter DEX GitHub and API guide explains how to pull the data yourself.

Is there a Lighter DEX block explorer?

zkLighter does not have a public block explorer like Arbiscan. State is committed to Ethereum as proofs; deposits, withdrawals and proof submissions are visible on Etherscan under Lighter's rollup contracts. Trade-level data is available via the API and the in-app history. Robinhood Chain, being Arbitrum-based, has a standard explorer.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lighter DEX's daily volume? Roughly $1–3 billion a day in mid-to-late 2026, varying with market conditions. Peak days exceeded $7 billion.

What is Lighter DEX's TVL? About $487 million as of September 2026 per DefiLlama.

How much revenue does Lighter make? About $26 million annualized from protocol fees, plus partnership revenue from Circle and Robinhood.

Is Lighter on DefiLlama and Dune? Yes. DefiLlama has a protocol page; Dune has several community dashboards.

What is Lighter DEX's market cap? LIT market cap was around $1.1 billion in late September 2026; the company was last valued at $1.5 billion.

Related guides

• Lighter perp DEX token
• Lighter DEX trading fees
• Lighter perp DEX API
• Lighter vs Hyperliquid