Inside Lighter’s Plan to Overtake Hyperliquid | Vladimir Novakovski

Summary

Vladimir Novakovski, founder and CEO of Lighter, discusses Lighter's competitive position against Hyperliquid and centralized exchanges, its Ethereum L2 and ZK architecture, the upcoming EVM sidecar, equity perps, and the LIT token. He argues Lighter's low-latency, low-cost, verifiable infrastructure and U.S. token issuance position it to benefit from DeFi-TradFi convergence. The conversation also covers partnerships with Robinhood and Coinbase, valuation relative to Hyperliquid, and the growing institutional adoption of onchain finance.

• Lighter uses custom ZK circuits and an Ethereum L2 to offer low-latency, low-cost, verifiable perp trading.
• Vlad says Lighter is more competitive than Hyperliquid on performance and Ethereum composability.
• Lighter's equity perps and tokenized equities could expand its addressable market.
• The LIT token is issued from the U.S. corporate entity with value accruing via staking and buybacks.
• Lighter trades around $2B vs Hyperliquid's $24B; Vlad argues growth should be considered in valuation.
• Robinhood and Coinbase invested in Lighter; Robinhood partnership may involve tokenized stocks and DeFi perps.
• Vlad expects DeFi-TradFi convergence, tokenized stocks, and onchain hedge funds to grow.