How Lighter, an Invite-Only DEX, Became a $1.5B Unicorn and a Global Trading Powerhouse

Key Takeaways

• Lighter has raised $68 cardinal successful a caller backing round, sources report.

• The woody values the institution astatine $1.5 billion.

• Only a fistful of DEXs person attained a akin level of success.

Decentralized perpetual futures speech Lighter has raised $68 cardinal successful a caller backing round, CEO Vladimir Novakovski announced successful an interrogation connected Tuesday, Nov. 11.

With a $1.5 cardinal valuation according to sources cited by Fortune, Lighter has joined the elite nine of decentralized speech (DEX) unicorns.

Not atrocious for a level that requires an invitation nexus to join.

While valuing DEXs is complicated, the backstage companies that physique and support them person attracted important investments.

At its past backing circular successful 2022, Uniswap Labs was valued astatine $1.66 billion, a terms tag that reflects its important UNI holdings and interest gross from Uniswap’s front-end interface.

Meanwhile, though Hyperliquid Labs’ founders claim they self-funded the project, an associated U.S. entity, Hyperliquid Strategies, is seeking to raise $1 billion done a SPAC merger.

Lighter’s latest backing circular is the archetypal 1 Novakovski has publically disclosed.

Although helium remained tight-lipped astir the details, helium told Fortune the woody was for equity and warrants to a aboriginal token.

As decentralized perp enactment has exploded successful 2025, truthful has Lighter’s trading volume.

In the week starring up to Nov. 11, the level outperformed Hyperliquid and Aster, stealing canvass presumption successful a competitory three-way contention for dominance. 

Having started the twelvemonth astir equal, today, perp DEXs routinely out-trade their spot peers with combined volumes typically astir 3 times higher connected the upstart derivatives platforms. 

To see different adoption metric, Hyperliquid’s full worth locked (TVL) present rivals Uniswap’s and outstrips PancakeSwap by implicit 100%. 

Even Lighter, which had a little TVL of astir $1.15 cardinal astatine the clip of writing, has attracted much deposits than each but the largest spot DEXs.

Lighter’s adoption has exploded despite, oregon possibly due to the fact that of, its deliberately restrained maturation strategy.

Rather than opening unrestricted entree to anyone, caller users indispensable petition an invitation done Lighter’s authoritative Discord transmission oregon person a referral codification from an existing user.

The attack is reasonably commonplace for projects similar Lighter that are inactive successful nationalist beta.

What isn’t emblematic is the platform’s runaway occurrence earlier it has adjacent launched successful full.

The station How Lighter, an Invite-Only DEX, Became a $1.5B Unicorn and a Global Trading Powerhouse appeared archetypal connected ccn.com.