Is Coinbase ready for Lighter
CoinW Institute
Summary
Recently, Lighter became the focus of the Perp DEX track discussion. Lighter trading is active and the crediting system is functioning steadily, but the timing and details of currency issuance are not yet clear, leading to market expectations ahead of time, while critical information lags behind and is controversial. Unlike projects that rely solely on incentives, Lighter attracts a large number of long-term users through efficient blending mechanisms and efficient trading experiences, which have shown greater product value. This has allowed the market to begin to value in advance using mature asset criteria and has led to greater divergence. The entire Perp DEX track is at a critical stage in its transition from “incentive drive” to “innate value”. How to design a token that can effectively motivate users and rationally capture the real value of the platform is a common challenge for the industry. Repurchase and incentive strategies for past projects were focused, but generally showed caution and balance. Lighter's current hesitation reflects the deep thinking about the positioning of token functions on the track. Whether and how to find a reasonable location between incentives and values remains a central issue to be addressed urgently. Watching the development of Lighter helps to understand the design and orientation for sustainable development of the entire Perp DEX ecological future。
1. Where does the Lighter dispute come from: the misalignment between the expected prefix and the information lag
Recently, discussions on the Lighter have increased significantly. On the one hand, progress at the project level has continued to send positive signals: on 13 December, Coinbase announced the addition of Lighter to the above-currency road map; at the same time, the scale of the Platform ' s transactions has been magnified in tandem with the score-related data, making it quickly one of the highest-profile projects in the Perp DEX track。
But what goes up with the data and exposure is the uncertainty surrounding the TGE and the airdrop rhythm. At the heart of the current market dispute over Lighter lies not in whether it “will issue a currency” but in the fact that market expectations are clearly ahead of schedule, but the key information that determines the valuation remains unrecognized. The long-standing presence of Lighter in the community or the expectation that TGE would take place in December this year has not been clearly stated by the official authorities as to the specific time, rules or currency allocation。
At the institutional level, Lighter ' s crediting system has entered the stable operational phase. Users can obtain points by depositing funds into the LLP (Lighter Limited Production) public pool and participating in contractual transactions. Currently, Season 2 is in the process of setting a relatively fixed pace for the distribution of points and distributing them according to the conduct of the transaction, while retaining the right to dynamically adjust the rules. To date, however, no official announcement has been made of how points will be linked to future tokens or TGEs, including conversion ratios, distribution structures or complete Tokenomics designs。
In the process of actual participation, although no final answer has been given by the official authorities, the points have been widely regarded by users as important reference indicators for potential future benefits. This expectation has been further strengthened as participation has expanded. According to official data, for the time beingLighter ScoreTHE CORRESPONDING TVL HAS REACHED ABOUT $690 MILLION, MEANING THAT THE SYSTEM ALREADY CONTAINS A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF REAL MONEY AND TRANSACTIONS. AGAINST THIS BACKGROUND, UNCERTAINTY AT THE TIME OF ISSUANCE AND AT THE RULES LEVEL CAN EASILY BE AMPLIFIED AS AN UNCERTAIN JUDGEMENT OF POTENTIAL GAINS AND IS DIRECTLY REFLECTED IN PRICE DIFFERENCES IN THE FORECAST MARKET AND IN THE APPARENT POLARIZATION OF THE MOOD OF PARTICIPANTS。
Full 1. Lighter points systemhttps://app.lighter.xyz/public-pools/281447976710654
According to data from Polymarket, which predicts the market, the market does not form a highly consistent judgement of Lighter ' s air drop time. For example, the probability of “Lighter drops on 29 December” is about 28 per cent, while the probability of “no drops in 2025” is about 33 per cent, while the probability of the remaining dates is relatively dispersed. This structure suggests that the market does not view airdrops as a definitive event, but rather sets parallel pricing for a variety of possible scenarios。
2. The defence on Polymark for when the Lighter airdrop will behttps://polymarket.com/event/what-day-will-the-lighter-airdrop-be?tid=1766026269827
In projections of post-line valuation of tokens, the market has a positive judgement that the FDV exceeds $1 billion on the “top day”, but the probability of a higher valuation area is expected to shrink significantly. Overall, the market ' s attitude towards Lighter is not blindly optimistic, but rather pre-empts risk-distributed pricing while uncertainty remains。
The predation on Polymark for Lighter's markt cap one day after launchhttps://polymarket.com/event/lighter-market-cap-fdv-one-day-after-launch?tid=1766026452011
At a longer-term level, community perceptions are emerging around the Lighter business model and token design. Some argue that Lighter is currently more focused on the traded product itself, that it is still very limited in pledge, governance or more abundant eco-level design, and that if the future token function fails to form a clear value closed to platform trading, there will be a greater downward pressure on the user activity of TGE and air drops. Such discussions are not a denial of the progress of the project, but rather a significant rise in market interest in long-term sustainability against the backdrop of the maturity of the Perp DEX track。
High exposure early pricing: why Lighter is considered a “quasi-asset”
Over the past year, the Perp DEX project has been non-existent, but not many of them have been able to achieve sustainable market access. Unlike projects that rely on high-intensity incentives to maintain data, Lighter was placed in a high exposure position from the outset. The SuperBase app, launched by Coinbase, brings together Lighter's official web page, where users can directly discover and use the product. This places it in the context of a potential mainstream trading landscape and means that the market is judging it quickly from a “run-through mechanism” to a “worth of long-term pricing”。
In the process, Lighter did not give a full account of the tokens, but its transaction data and participation increased simultaneously in a short period of time. This combination has enabled the market to begin integrating it into the framework of discussions on valuation and horizontal comparisons, where all key information is not yet available。
More importantly, the point at which Lighter appeared coincided with the turn of the overall narrative of Perp DEX. The industry focus is moving from an early emphasis on institutional and structural innovations to a more realistic question: whether there is a real demand for sustainable, non-incentive-driven transactions. In this context, as long as the project takes the lead in proving that it is “in fact being used”, even if the business model and the capture of token values have not yet closed the entire narrative, the market is often seen as a “quasi-assets” in advance。
Thus, the current controversy surrounding Lighter does not stem entirely from the pace of the project itself, but rather from a structural mismatch between market expectations and the project phase: Differences are naturally magnified when markets begin to measure a product that is still in the construction phase in a way that treats mature assets。
Did Lighter really escape the value of the product without looking at TGE
If TGE and airdrop expectations are removed for the time being, whether Lighter still has the value to be discussed on an ongoing basis is key to determining whether this project deserves attention。
In terms of disclosed data and actual transactions, Lighter shows at least a few key signals that are not readily available. First of all, at the level of durability contracts, Lighter has taken over considerable market transactions. According to DefiLlama data, as of December 18Lighter OVER THE PAST 30 DAYS, THE TURNOVER OF DURABLE CONTRACTS WAS APPROXIMATELY $25,622.7 MILLION, THE PLATFORM TVL WAS $1.457 BILLION, AND THE CORRESPONDING TURNOVER/TVL (EQUIVALENT CAPITAL OCCUPANCY) WAS APPROXIMATELY 175.88. IN CONTRASTHyperliquidandAster During the same period, the volume of transactions / TVL was approximately 49.16 (20.384 billion USD/ 41.46 billion USD) and 169.6 (22.10.0 billion USD/1.303 billion USD) respectively. The transaction volume / TVL essentially reflects the turnover strength of the unit-locked capital over a period of time. The higher the target in the context of a sustainable contract scenario, the higher it usually means that funds are used more frequently in rolling and that transactions tend to be more HF-driven and incentive-driven. In terms of this indicator, Lighter and Aster both currently exhibit significant high turnover characteristics, showing a high level of trading activity, but may contain a transactional demand that is somewhat amplified by incentive mechanisms; in contrast, Hyperliquid ' s trading structure is more oriented towards risk exposure to capital deposition and relative stability。
In this time window, Lighter ' s long-term contract trading scale is in the high range of Perp DEX tracks, showing greater competitiveness in trading efficiency and system carrying capacity. It is important to note that the trade dynamism of Lighter at this stage may still be affected by incentives and market expectations, rather than being dominated solely by natural demand. Even so, the ability to sustain such a volume in a high-frequency, highly leveraged trading environment has itself constituted a high technology and product threshold and laid the foundation for subsequent testing of the sustainability of real transaction needs。
Full 4. Lighter datahttps://defillama.com/protocol/lighter?perpVolume=true&tvl=false
Second, in terms of product structure, Lighter has been able to support the continuous use of the order book mix model in terms of efficiency, slide control and transaction feedback. This determines that it is not just a one-off product, but that it is part of the long-term course of dealing. In addition, access to the official base app page has brought entry-level exposure that does not stop at the visible stage. Based on currently observed transactional and dynamic data, at least some of the flows have been converted from “exposure” to “behaviour”. This led to a gap between Lighter and a large number of Perp DEX projects that were still at the narrative level and expected。
It's precisely because we've run through these critical links that Lighter is being asked for more. When a project has been shown to have real use value, the question is no longer just whether it has a "no token" but whether it can reasonably be carried and magnify these already existing values。
How can Token design when Perp DEX runs
Following projects such as Hyperliquid and Aster, Perp DEX is coming together to a similar stage node: When the traded product itself is proven to be viable, how should the token be “reasonablely present”
Past project practice has offered attempts in different directions. In the case of Hyperliquid, the token design does not stop at the level of governance or incentives, but is structured around how to take over the real revenues of the agreement. According to official disclosuresThird-party statisticsTHE PLATFORM CONTINUED TO USE MOST OF THE FEES (OVER 90 PER CENT) GENERATED BY OPERATIONS SUCH AS THE RENEWAL OF CONTRACTS TO REPURCHASE HYPE COINS IN SECONDARY MARKETS AND TO SUPPORT THEIR SUPPLY SIDE BY DESTROYING OR MOVING THEM OUT OF CIRCULATION. AS THE VOLUME OF TRANSACTIONS INCREASES WITH THE VOLUME OF FEES, THE INTENSITY OF BUY-BACKS INCREASES SIMULTANEOUSLY, LEADING TO THE TRANSFER OF THE RESULTS OF THE OPERATION OF THE AGREEMENT TO THE TOKEN LEVEL, CREATING RELATIVELY CLEAR VALUE CHAINS. THIS PATH IS ALSO VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD IN TERMS OF THE FUNDAMENTALS: THE BUY-BACK MECHANISM CAN ONLY FUNCTION IF THE PLATFORM IS ABLE TO GENERATE REAL TRANSACTION REVENUES OF SUFFICIENT SCALE OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME AND STEADILY. ONCE TRADE ACTIVITY HAS DECLINED, THE SUPPORT OF THE VALUE OF THE TOKENS WILL FOLLOW。
In contrast, Aster rapidly expanded user size and trade activity at an early stage through large-scale airdrops and multistage incentives. Official Tokenomics shows that about 53.5 per cent of the total ASTER supply is spent on air drops, trade incentives and community incentives to help build up mobility during start-up. In the long-term value design, Aster introduced a phased buy-back and destruction mechanism, with approximately half of the publicly repurchased tokens being permanently destroyed and the rest locked for subsequent incentives. Repurchase funds come mainly from protocol fees and the project treasury and are not entirely dependent on the agreement revenue. Unlike Hyperliquid, which continues to spend most of its processing costs on buy-backs, Aster's buy-backs are more used to stabilize expectations and reconcile demand and supply, and scale and tempo do not automatically increase with fees. Such a strategy would help to raise awareness and participation at an early stage, but in the medium to long term, where incentives are weakened, transaction demand is difficult to absorb and tokens may be under pressure。
Under realistic constraints, the token design of the Perp DEX project is generally characterized by a "conscious restraint": They are aware of the unsustainability of purely incentive-type tokens, while being vigilant about the structural complexity and compliance costs of income-distribution tokens. Postponement of commitments, retention of elasticity, became a more rational option, pending the absence of a standard path that had been fully validated and replicated。
Returning to Lighter: its “hesitation”, perhaps part of the answer to the question
In a relatively calm view, Lighter's current state of affairs is quite clear: It is not a project that relies solely on TGE ' s valuation, but at the same time it has not given a sufficiently convincing market-priced final narrative for Token。
In terms of product strategy, Lighter does not quickly accumulate short-term data through high-frequency, visible subsidies, but rather uses a crediting mechanism to bind incentives to real transactions. This incentive has been delayed and its effect is more in the form of continuous guidance of transactions than in the form of a one-off impulse. Lighter is using run-through transaction volumes, active users and sustained growth data in exchange for market time and patience. In a market environment that is highly accustomed to TGE as a phased anchor, such restraint is bound to cause discomfort。
And that's why the divisions around Lighter began to become more visible. For short-term participants, the lack of clear token schedules and revenue expectations directly weakens the motivation for participation and raises questions about the natural rise in sentiment; for long-term trading users, the immediate issuance of coins does not affect their use decisions as long as the depth of the product, the efficiency of the blending and the experience of the transaction remain strong. The misalignment of the concerns of both groups of people has led to a very different assessment of the same project from different perspectives and to a widening of market differences。
From an industry perspective, the argument embodied by Lighter has gone beyond “is it a issuing currency” per se, but has touched on the core proposition of the design of the decentralised permanent trading platform coin: is it really necessary in the context of Perp DEX's proven demand for real users and transactions? Should its core function focus on incentives, governance or, more importantly, value capture and long-term ecological construction
This reflects the transition of the entire track from “quick growth + incentives” to “sustainable value creation”. Lighteru ' s performance and token strategy, as a market-magnification project, will have an important demonstration effect on the entire Perp DEX eco-council economic model. This exploration of the positioning of tokens will continue to influence the design thinking and market expectations of future projects, regardless of the eventual design and issuance rhythm. For investors and researchers, observing Lighter's path helps to see how this track achieves a critical leap from “incentive flow” to “innate value”。
References
1. Hyperligence Reporthttps://messari.io/research/deep-research-reports/hyperliquid-diligence-report-fdf9486f-d978-4a6f-980e-ccadc697b120
2.10 Projects Count for 92% of Token Buyback Spend in 2025:https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/token-buybacks
Lighter points system:https://app.lighter.xyz/public-pools/281447976710654
The defence on Polymark for when the Lighter airdrop will be:https://polymarket.com/event/what-day-will-the-lighter-airdrop-be?tid=1766026269827
The predation on Polymark for Lighter's market cap (FDV) one day after launch:https://polymarket.com/event/lighter-market-cap-fdv-one-day-after-launch?tid=1766026452011
6. Lighter data on Defillamahttps://defillama.com/protocol/lighter?perpVolume=true&tvl=false
7-Aster DEX burns 80 million tokens and unveils 2026 roadmap:https://investx.fr/en/crypto-news/aster-ex-burns-80-million-tokens-unveils-2026-radmap-key-insights-analysis/
8. Aster PERP-DEX Investment Memo:https://insights.blockbase.co/aster-perp-ex-investment-memo
Aster Updates Astor Token Buyback and Airdrop to Boost Token Value:https://www.mexc.co/en-IN/news/149436
