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Lighter’s native LIT token surged 14% to $3.07 on January 5, 2026, after the perpetuals DEX protocol indicated it had resumed active buybacks using revenue from its high-throughput order book, demonstrating the effectiveness of its fee-driven tokenomics in a volatile market.
New listing: $LIT is live! pic.twitter.com/grbcGUMkI2
— Lighter (@Lighter_xyz) December 30, 2025
The price jump followed Lighter’s announcement that it had allocated 25% of monthly protocol fees to open-market LIT purchases, with on-chain data showing approximately $1.8 million in buybacks executed since the program restarted on December 25, 2025. Lighter’s Assistance Fund, modelled after Hyperliquid’s successful mechanism, directs fees to reduce circulating supply and support price discovery.
The buyback resumption coincides with renewed trader interest in leverage trading as bitcoin stabilizes near $93,431 and altcoin volatility picks up. On X, the reactions have been pouring in thick and fast.
[ ZOOMER ]
LIGHTER BEGINS BUYBACKS FROM GENERATED PROTOCOL FEES: ONCHAIN
— zoomer (@zoomerfied) January 5, 2026
One user described the token as still going strong and that it is good the price is reflecting the same. He concluded by stating empathically: “this is how a great product and execution looks like.”
$LIT GM everyone!
Lighter is staying strong,
> Generating $3B in volume daily even after TGE.
> This is good and price reflecting the same.One more good news for $LIT holders🕯️
> Token buybacks started.
> Track buybacks on Lighter Treasury account
> They bought 180K $LIT
>… pic.twitter.com/RAouTPViWg— CRYPTO WISDOM with NEEL (@cryptowisdom7) January 6, 2026
In an analysis demonstrated with a chart, user Altcoin Sherpa described the rise as front running the buyback move and calls for traders to wait and see if it continues.
$LIT movements today were just front running the Lighter buy back move. Let's see if this move is going to continue; you can see insiders already taking profits a bit. It should still do pretty well but yeah, less of an organic pump. https://t.co/rqGMLrcIvE pic.twitter.com/TXBP2OS4Dv
— Altcoin Sherpa (@AltcoinSherpa) January 5, 2026
Meanwhile, Blockchain analytics have raised concerns about potential insider activity in the Lighter (LIT) token ecosystem, with five interconnected wallets receiving nearly 10 million LIT tokens (about 4% of circulating supply) from a recent airdrop and subsequently selling roughly 2.76 million tokens worth $7.18 million since the Token Generation Event (TGE).
The wallets first appeared in April 2025 when an entity deposited $5 million in USDC into Lighter’s liquidity protocol (LLP), distributing the funds evenly across the addresses. These same wallets later received the large airdrop allocation, 9,999,999.60 LIT tokens, along with an additional $1–2 million in LLP yield. The uniform distribution and methodical sales pattern have led analysts to suspect coordinated liquidation rather than organic trading behavior.
Blockchain researcher MLM first flagged the activity, noting the identical funding and synchronized behavior. Community sentiment on X has turned cautious, with analyst Henrik warning that “if this is correct, that’s a serious concern for every $LIT holder, especially given the lack of transparent communication from the Lighter team.” Crypto investigator ZachXBT has also alluded to the possibility of opportunistic insider behavior.
This entity deposited ~$5M USDC into LLP around 9 months ago, split across 5 wallets, and received 9,999,999.60 LIT from the airdrop (~$26M) – a perfectly round number. This excludes LLP yield, which adds another $1–2M in returns.
This represents 1% of total supply and ~4% of… pic.twitter.com/tOjlubo1YU
— MLM (@mlmabc) December 31, 2025
It is important to note that the token sales is occurring as Lighter maintains 10–15% market share in decentralized perpetuals, with daily volume of $30-35 million driven by zero-maker fees and high-performance execution. The incident is evidence of ongoing transparency and trust challenges in DeFi protocols, particularly around airdrop allocations and large-holder behavior. It also reflects a broader trend in 2025, with top perp DEXs increasingly reliant on automated buybacks to create deflationary pressure and align token value with protocol revenue.
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