LIT is still telling the CFTC license story, but I just want to do the math.
On October 11, Lighter burned all the tokens it bought back in Q3 at once: 2,452,017 tokens. Sounds pretty impressive, right?
Now look at the other side: the team and investors hold 500 million tokens combined—half the total supply—with a one-year cliff followed by linear unlocks over 36 months. Tracking data says the first unlock will likely start around December 27–29, at about 3.2 million tokens per week.
You read that right: more tokens are being released in a week than were burned in an entire quarter. At a rough estimate of 13 weeks, that’s over 40 million tokens unlocked per quarter. The amount burned is so small it wouldn’t even cover a month of unlocks.
The price is around $2.85 now, down nearly half from the September 24 high of $5.51. The circulating market cap is about $710 million, with an FDV of roughly $2.8 billion. Only 25% of the supply is circulating on the market. The remaining 75% is still waiting in line.
And what about the CFTC? For now, it’s only “planning to apply in November”—the application hasn’t even been submitted. Robinhood chose Bitstamp, not Lighter, for its U.S. perpetuals. Viewed this way, the license story looks more like emotional support to help find buyers before the unlocks.
The buyback-and-burn model is sound: real fee revenue is used to buy tokens. The problem is that revenue would have to multiply several times over to absorb an additional 3.2 million tokens every week. How are zero-fee perpetuals supposed to make that happen?
There are 8 weeks left until the unlocks. Smart money usually doesn’t wait until the day itself to get out.
#LIT #Lighter
On October 11, Lighter burned all the tokens it bought back in Q3 at once: 2,452,017 tokens. Sounds pretty impressive, right?
Now look at the other side: the team and investors hold 500 million tokens combined—half the total supply—with a one-year cliff followed by linear unlocks over 36 months. Tracking data says the first unlock will likely start around December 27–29, at about 3.2 million tokens per week.
You read that right: more tokens are being released in a week than were burned in an entire quarter. At a rough estimate of 13 weeks, that’s over 40 million tokens unlocked per quarter. The amount burned is so small it wouldn’t even cover a month of unlocks.
The price is around $2.85 now, down nearly half from the September 24 high of $5.51. The circulating market cap is about $710 million, with an FDV of roughly $2.8 billion. Only 25% of the supply is circulating on the market. The remaining 75% is still waiting in line.
And what about the CFTC? For now, it’s only “planning to apply in November”—the application hasn’t even been submitted. Robinhood chose Bitstamp, not Lighter, for its U.S. perpetuals. Viewed this way, the license story looks more like emotional support to help find buyers before the unlocks.
The buyback-and-burn model is sound: real fee revenue is used to buy tokens. The problem is that revenue would have to multiply several times over to absorb an additional 3.2 million tokens every week. How are zero-fee perpetuals supposed to make that happen?
There are 8 weeks left until the unlocks. Smart money usually doesn’t wait until the day itself to get out.
#LIT #Lighter
