Question 1

What is Lighter (LIT)?

Accepted Answer

Lighter is a Layer 2 rollup protocol designed for high-performance decentralised finance (DeFi), offering a verifiable and low-latency trading experience using application-specific zero-knowledge proofs. Its architecture addresses key limitations of general-purpose rollups, including front-running and maximal extractable value (MEV), by implementing fair sequencing, time-priority matching, and zk-SNARK-backed validation. Lighter is built to handle complex order book-based markets, including perpetuals and spot markets, while maintaining trust-minimised guarantees via Ethereum.

Lighter's architecture includes distinct modules for sequencing, proving, data aggregation and exit safety. It enables trustless recovery of funds through its Escape Hatch mechanism, while leveraging data blobs and layered aggregation circuits to compress and verify trading activity efficiently. Designed with extensibility in mind, Lighter also supports programmable multi-step instructions, data compression, and modular applications such as lending and prediction markets.

Question 2

What is Lighter (LIT) used for?

Accepted Answer

LIT is the native token of the Lighter protocol. While the protocol focuses heavily on technical and architectural design, the token's utility is expected to support the following roles:

- **Fee settlement** within the protocol for trades and interactions
- **Incentivisation** of protocol participants such as sequencers and provers
- **Governance** over protocol upgrades and parameters
- **Collateral or staking** in future decentralised roles, such as shared proving or liquidity provisioning

LIT aligns the economic layer with protocol performance, serving as the settlement and coordination asset across trading, verification and network participation.

Question 3

How does Lighter work?

Accepted Answer

Lighter introduces a set of interconnected systems optimised for verifiable on-chain trading:

- **Sequencer**: A low-latency engine that bundles and commits transactions in strict price-time order, while supporting complex order types and market integrations.
- **Prover**: Generates zero-knowledge proofs for batches of blocks, verifying correctness of matching, state transitions and account updates. Multi-layered aggregation is used to compress proofs efficiently.
- **Smart Contracts**: Manage user assets, state root commitments, proof verification and censorship-resistant exits.
- **Witness Generator**: Transforms committed transaction data into public inputs for zk-circuits.
- **Escape Hatch**: A cryptographic mechanism allowing users to recover assets using only data posted on Ethereum in the event of protocol failure or censorship.

All batches and state changes are published to Ethereum using data blobs. Verification circuits validate every step, from block creation to trade execution.

Question 4

Core Technical Components

Accepted Answer

- **State Tree**: A Merkle-like structure storing account balances, order books, withdrawal intents, public pool data and insurance funds.
- **Account Tree**: Nested under the state tree, stores metadata for user sub-accounts, keys, positions and order information.
- **Order Book Tree**: Implements an optimised prefix tree to manage order matching with logarithmic complexity.
- **Block Circuits**: Generate zk-SNARK proofs for exchange logic across execution cycles, including pre- and post-execution states.
- **Layered Aggregation Circuits**: Compress multiple block proofs into a single verifiable output, improving performance and reducing on-chain costs.

Question 5

Instruction Stack and Modularity

Accepted Answer

Lighter supports a programmable instruction stack allowing for multi-step actions, such as:

- Grouped order submission
- Conditional trades
- Linked position adjustments

This design enables composable financial logic, paving the way for lending, collateral flows and structured products to be added modularly.

Question 6

Escape Hatch Mechanism

Accepted Answer

The Escape Hatch protects user funds by enabling them to exit via on-chain proofs even if the sequencer is unavailable or malicious. It verifies user states using blob data and publicly posted commitments, ensuring asset recovery without dependency on off-chain actors.

#	Instrument	Exchange	Benchmark Score	Price	24h Change	24h Volume	24h Trades	24h Open	24h High
1	LIT-USDT LIT-USDT	okex	A	4.95USDT	15.89%	3,240,423.06LIT	59,574	4.27USDT	4.96USDT
2	LIT-USDT LITUSDT	bybit	A	4.95USDT	15.80%	2,728,302.20LIT	63,403	4.27USDT	4.97USDT
3	LIT-USDT LIT_USDT	gateio	A	4.95USDT	15.86%	1,853,635.90LIT	39,149	4.27USDT	4.96USDT
4	LIT-USD LIGHTER-USD	coinbase	AA	4.95USD	15.98%	1,467,498.43LIT	17,013	4.27USD	4.96USD
5	LIT-USDT LIT_USDT	whitebit	BB	4.95USDT	15.80%	480,130.50LIT	16,543	4.27USDT	4.96USDT
6	LIT-USD LIGHTERUSD	kraken	AA	4.95USD	16.06%	334,719.11LIT	7,469	4.27USD	4.95USD
7	LIT-USD litusd	bitstamp	AA	4.95USD	15.98%	275,102.87LIT	2,363	4.27USD	4.95USD
8	LIT-TRY LIT-TRY	okex	A	239.53TRY	14.97%	7,291.62LIT	385	208.34TRY	239.53TRY
9	LIT-USD LIT-USD	okex	A	4.91USD	14.81%	3,851.90LIT	228	4.28USD	4.91USD
10	LIT-USD LIGHTER_USD	cryptodotcom	AA	4.78USD	13.67%	533.50LIT	40	4.21USD	4.81USD
11	LIT-USDT LITUSDT	cexio	BB	4.23USDT	1.64%	45.36LIT	4	4.16USDT	4.28USDT
12	LIT-EUR liteur	bitstamp	AA	1.91EUR	0.00%	0LIT	0	1.91EUR	1.91EUR
13	LIT-USD LITUSD	cexio	BB	4.26USD	3.23%	3.61LIT	1	4.12USD	4.26USD
14	LIT-USDC LITUSDC	cexio	BB	4.70USDC	14.29%	3.28LIT	1	4.11USDC	4.70USDC
15	LIT-USDT lit_usdt	digifinex	D	4.95USDT	15.89%	2,678,261.57LIT	18,021	4.27USDT	4.96USDT
16	LIT-THB THB_LIT	bitkub	C	163.68THB	15.97%	2,652,587.11LIT	61,283	141.14THB	166.63THB
17	LIT-USDT LIT_USDT	coinw	-	4.95USDT	15.91%	454,526.16LIT	9,147	4.27USDT	4.95USDT
18	LIT-USDT lit_usdt	xtpub	-	4.95USDT	15.94%	434,637.00LIT	9,423	4.27USDT	4.96USDT
19	LIT-KRW KRW-LIT	upbit	B	6,835.00KRW	16.84%	366,868.00LIT	3,352	5,850.00KRW	6,840.00KRW
20	LIT-USDT LIT2USDT	toobit	C	4.95USDT	15.82%	230,750.60LIT	32,678	4.27USDT	4.96USDT
21	LIT-USDT litusdt	huobipro	C	4.95USDT	16.10%	215,563.95LIT	16,380	4.26USDT	4.95USDT
22	LIT-KRW LIT_KRW	bithumbkorea	-	6,775.00KRW	16.81%	160,208.92LIT	1,983	5,800.00KRW	6,775.00KRW
23	LIT-TRY LITTRY	btcturk	E	241.00TRY	16.27%	129,461.15LIT	1,548	207.27TRY	241.94TRY
24	LIT-USDT LIGHTER_USDT	bitunix	C	4.95USDT	15.77%	105,868.19LIT	16,571	4.28USDT	4.96USDT
25	LIT-USDT sLITUSDT	phemex	C	4.93USDT	15.15%	97,993.84LIT	7,769	4.29USDT	4.97USDT
26	LIT-EUR LIGHTER-EUR	bitvavo	B	4.31EUR	16.46%	41,915.49LIT	867	3.70EUR	4.31EUR
27	LIT-USD LITUSD	edxmarkets	C	4.91USD	15.34%	33,625.30LIT	70	4.25USD	4.93USD
28	LIT-USDT LIGHTER-USDT	bingx	D	4.96USDT	16.04%	17,326.29LIT	6,272	4.27USDT	4.96USDT
29	LIT-USD LIT-USD	btse	-	4.95USD	15.96%	13,837.37LIT	30,243	4.27USD	4.96USD
30	LIT-USDC LITUSDC	mexc	C	4.95USDC	15.58%	12,877.23LIT	3,355	4.28USDC	4.95USDC
31	LIT-IDR lighteridr	indodax	E	87,000.00IDR	14.42%	7,074.99LIT	296	76,035.00IDR	92,000.00IDR
32	LIT-USDT LIT-USDT	btse	-	4.95USDT	15.70%	6,698.36LIT	8,214	4.28USDT	4.95USDT
33	LIT-USDT LITUSDT	btcturk	E	4.74USDT	8.90%	3,110.80LIT	70	4.35USDT	4.85USDT
34	LIT-USDC LIT-USDC	btse	-	4.95USDC	15.87%	561.86LIT	1,833	4.27USDC	4.95USDC
35	LIT-BRL LIT-BRL	mercadobtc	C	22.98BRL	0.86%	129.11LIT	28	22.78BRL	23.90BRL
36	LIT-BTC BTC-LIT	upbit	B	0.0₄6376BTC	8.05%	3.97LIT	3	0.0₄5901BTC	0.0₄6376BTC
37	LIT-KRW lit_krw	korbit	C	5,910.00KRW	2.78%	120.26LIT	8	5,750.00KRW	6,630.00KRW
38	LIT-USDT USDT-LIT	upbit	B	23.68USDT	0.00%	0LIT	0	23.68USDT	23.68USDT