- Lighter expands from 100 testers to 188K accounts, showing strong demand for onchain perpetual trading.
- Audited ZK circuits and anti-wash trading rules aim to combine high-frequency speed with transparency.
Lighter has gone live with its public mainnet after eight months of private beta testing. The Ethereum Layer 2 protocol is designed for perpetual trading with low fees and near-instant execution.
The rollout was announced on October 2, confirming that deposit limits and referral codes have been removed.
The Lighter public mainnet is live after 8 months of private beta!
Trade perpetuals with low costs and low latency on Ethereum L2 with custom ZK circuits for verifiable matching and liquidations. Experience onchain trading at the performance grade of high frequency finance. pic.twitter.com/v1VwADVAA8
— Lighter (@Lighter_xyz) October 1, 2025
During beta, Lighter expanded from 100 testers to 188,000 registered accounts. Daily active users now exceed 50,000, showing strong growth since early testing. An invite-based rewards system will remain in place, giving users points for referrals.
Technology and System Reviews
The platform uses custom zero-knowledge (ZK) circuits to validate trades without exposing underlying data. According to the team, this allows verifiable order matching and liquidations while keeping transaction costs low.
Ahead of launch, the protocol’s smart contracts and ZK infrastructure were reviewed by external auditors. Reports have been made public. Lighter also released a new block explorer to provide visibility into orders and liquidity on the system. Measures to stop wash trading and Sybil attacks are built in.
Moreover, decentralized perpetual exchanges have recorded sharp growth in 2025. Data from DefiLlama shows monthly trading volumes reached $1.226 trillion at press time, nearly 50% higher than the month before. Protocols such as Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter each cleared more than $100 billion in 30-day volumes.
Industry figures are watching the sector closely. Arthur Hayes, founder of BitMEX, described Lighter as “an experiment in on-chain high-frequency finance.” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev called it “a step forward for decentralized infrastructure.”
Analysts at Gate Research noted, however, that “liquidation transparency and margin efficiency remain weaker than centralized standards.”
Incentives and Roadmap
Lighter has launched the second season of its points program, which will run until the end of 2025. Users can continue to earn points through trading and referrals, with more earning methods expected to be introduced. The first season closed at the time of the mainnet launch.
The team said user feedback during beta shaped features now available on the platform. Roadmap details include improving composability with other protocols, which could link its Ethereum L2 system to broader DeFi applications.
Reports show that decentralized perpetual exchanges processed more than $2.6 trillion in 2025. At the same time, researchers have raised questions about systemic risk as daily volumes pass $100 billion. Another study noted that rewards programs, including Lighter’s, are influencing how users trade.
