Lighter has launched its native token, LIT, built on Ethereum, to serve as a core utility within its on-chain perpetuals trading platform rather than a simple governance token.

Ahead of the token generation event, Lighter introduced the LIT token as an infrastructure token designed to align incentives across the ecosystem, issued by Lighter’s U.S.-registered C-Corporation.

LIT is intended to power Lighter’s trading systems and extend beyond governance and rewards to function as a key utility token.

Founders and investors receive 26% and 24% of the supply respectively, with a one-year lockup followed by a three-year linear vesting; the remainder funds future rewards, partnerships, and expansion.

Team and investor tokens are locked for one year and then vest linearly over three years to align long-term incentives.

The distribution structure allocates 26% to founders and 24% to investors, under the described vesting schedule.

Lighter’s perpetuals on the platform averaged $2.7 billion in volume over the past week, placing it behind Hyperliquid and Aster in market activity.

The platform ranks as the third-largest perpetuals venue by weekly volume, with about $2.7 billion in trading activity, according to a Dune-powered tracker.

The project is developing in the United States and disclosed via Lighter’s official X account on December 30, 2025.

LIT’s utility includes access to financial products aimed at delivering risk-adjusted returns, enhanced execution, and improved capital efficiency, with tiered access increasing through staking.

Staking for LIT unlocks higher-tier trading execution and data verification services, with fees for market data and price verification payable in LIT and staking requirements scaling with decentralization.

LIT enables tiered staking for access to trading and data verification services, where higher features require more LIT locked and data fees are paid in LIT to maintain reliability.