On April 13th, Lighter DEX unveiled a 'liquidity partner program' that rewards market makers with $250,000 weekly for contributing liquidity to the platform's RWA (real-world asset) tokenized markets. According to reports from AMBCrypto, this aggressive positioning aims to establish Lighter as the go-to platform for tokenized equities and commodities trading. The program prioritizes rewards for those offering liquidity for oil, gold, and silver trades, followed by support for top stocks including NVDA, Tesla, and Circle's CRCL.
Despite the new incentives, Hyperliquid currently maintains 100% more liquidity than Lighter for RWA markets, as reported by AMBCrypto. This liquidity divergence suggests that traders are better off using Hyperliquid for smoother trade executions and fewer slippages. The RWA market explosion, particularly involving oil, gold, and silver since the West Asia crisis, has been a significant factor in this gap, with Hyperliquid's RWA market climbing higher since March and contributing to nearly 40% of overall trading volume with a 60% retention rate.
The contrasting performance between the two platforms is evident in their RWA trading activity. According to Lighter Research data cited by AMBCrypto, Lighter's non-crypto assets activity, especially commodities, has remained stagnant at around 16% for an extended period. In contrast, Hyperliquid's RWA market has shown strong adoption momentum, with non-crypto assets contributing to nearly 40% of overall trading volume during the West Asia crisis period. This performance gap could potentially attract more traders to Hyperliquid and other liquid venues for RWA markets.
The Lighter ecosystem has shown mixed capital inflow patterns, with the DEX experiencing net capital outflows of over $350 million in March, as reported by DeFiLlama. However, in the past two weeks, Lighter has seen relief inflows of over $7 million, coinciding with the Telegram integration and aggressive buyback program. During this period of capital inflows, the native token LIT experienced a 40% surge and reclaimed $1, maintaining its position above the $1 level despite recent pullbacks. As of press time, LIT was still trading above the $1 level, with potential for a 30% gain if the psychological support level holds.
