Coinbase Adds Lighter to Listing Roadmap

This decision underscores the growing interest in the Lighter project, which positions itself as a high-performance decentralized exchange (DEX) for trading perpetual contracts (perps) on Ethereum L2. According to the official announcement from Coinbase Markets, the addition took place on December 12, and the project now awaits support from market makers and technical infrastructure for full launch.

Lighter, founded by a team of experienced developers, is already showing impressive results: over the past 7 days, the perp trading volume reached $71 billion, making it the leader among DEXs in this metric and third in open interest. The project has raised $68 million in investments at a $1.5 billion valuation from leading funds such as Dragonfly, Coinbase Ventures, and others. Key features include low fees (zero or minimal for spot), integration with DeFi protocols like Aave and Uniswap, as well as upcoming features such as forex trading, on-chain stocks, and options. The team plans to launch spot trading by the end of October – beginning of November 2025, with an initial focus on major assets like ETH and BTC.

The market reacted instantly: the probability of a LIGHTER token airdrop by December 31 on the Polymarket platform jumped from 70% to 90% following the Coinbase announcement. Analysts note that the average time from addition to the roadmap to actual listing is about 12 days, suggesting a possible trading launch around December 25 - right on Christmas, as hinted by the project CEO Vladimir Novakowski in a comment about "lit holidays." Additionally, Polymarket shows high odds for a fully diluted valuation (FDV) exceeding $1 billion, with insider bets on a quick token generation event (TGE).

The LIGHTER contract address on Ethereum (ERC-20): 0x232ce3bd40fcd6f80f3d55a522d03f25df784ee2. The project is also actively combating sybils (multi-accounts for point farming), revoking points for manipulations, which is a typical step before an airdrop. The total community allocation is 50% of tokens, with 25-30% for seasons 1 and 2 points. Lighter stands out from competitors like Hyperliquid with early VC involvement and potential CEX listing, which could make it a bridge between DeFi and TradFi.

Experts predict that a listing on Coinbase could significantly boost the token's price, similar to historical precedents where assets rose by an average of 29% in the five days following the announcement.