perp DEX Lighter held an airdrop of LIT tokens worth a total of $675m. The event ranks among the ten largest token giveaways in crypto history, according to CoinGecko.
By dollar value, Lighter’s airdrop edged past 1inch’s ($671m) to take tenth place overall. Uniswap remains the leader, having distributed $6.43bn of tokens in 2020.
Most recipients did not sell their coins. Analyst Arndxt noted that 75% of users are still holding, and 7% bought more on the open market.
shedding some $LIT airdrop stats
people are not selling their airdrops (75% still holding) and some have been accumulating $LIT instead.
price have been holding up $2.5 to $2.7 very strongly
the perp meta is not dead but going to get more competitive from here on pic.twitter.com/MDu3KunVyS
— arndxt (@arndxt_xo) December 31, 2025
Some investors, however, voiced concerns over the project’s tokenomics. Half of the entire LIT supply is reserved for the team and investors, locked for one year with multi-year vesting thereafter.
50% to team??? What the rug is this??
— CocoFusion Labs (@CocoFusionLabs) December 30, 2025
Market participants called that share excessively high for a DeFi protocol. Some compared the model with the approach of competitor Hyperliquid.
At the time of writing, LIT trades at $2.66 (−18.1% on the day). The token’s market capitalisation is $692.9m, according to CoinGecko.
The crypto investor known as Casa warned that purchases at current levels may be attractive only in the short term.
I think most people are trading for re-pricing of $LIT towards 5B-6B FDV, which is justifiable given that $ASTER is trading around there.
Aster and Lighter should be more comparable at this point, I mean if you cannot even pass $ASTER then no need to compare w/ HYPE yet.
So… pic.twitter.com/vGE0wFFkLs— casa (@coin_casanova) December 30, 2025
Sustained growth will require a significant increase in trading volumes and user retention.
Perp-DEX boom
Lighter’s airdrop came amid an explosive surge in the perp-DEX market. By the end of 2025 the sector’s cumulative trading volume reached $12.09trn, up from $4.1trn at the start of the year.
The year 2025 accounted for $7.9trn, or 65% of the cumulative volume across such platforms.
Activity peaked in the second half. If volumes totalled $2.1trn in the first six months, they rose to $5.74trn in the second (73% of the annual tally). Since October, monthly volumes have consistently exceeded $1trn. The fourth quarter outpaced the entire first half.
Rising liquidity and better order execution have turned perp DEXs from alternative venues into primary hubs for margin trading.
The end of Hyperliquid’s monopoly
The sector began to take shape in 2021 with dYdX and Perpetual Protocol, but gained powerful momentum in 2023 after Hyperliquid’s launch.
In the first half of 2025 Hyperliquid dominated with monthly volumes between $175bn and $248bn. Rivals, including Aster and Lighter, significantly lagged.
The picture changed mid-year. Lighter increased its monthly volumes from under $50bn to over $100bn by the third quarter. Aster posted explosive growth late in the year, reaching $259bn in October and November.
The data point to a market in transition: from the dominance of a single venue to a competitive ecosystem with several major players.
In October, Lighter launched its layer 2 mainnet built on the EVM. In December the platform added spot trading.