#ETF与衍生品 After reviewing Lighter's TGE discussion, the core issue is actually quite clear — this is not a simple comparison of "Lighter vs Hyperliquid," but two completely different business approaches.

Hyperliquid is pursuing a "decentralized ecosystem," achieving liquidity prosperity through HIP-3 delegated market deployment rights, but at the cost of the chain's inherent centralization flaws (monolithic application chains, multi-signature bridge risks) and exposure of transaction privacy. Lighter, on the other hand, opts for an Ethereum L2 + ZK architecture. What does this mean? It means users can hold stETH on the mainnet to earn staking rewards, while using it as collateral to open contracts on L2 — maximizing capital efficiency.

More importantly, there's a difference in business models. Hyperliquid relies on tiered fee structures based on trading volume; retail traders don't get much benefit. Lighter offers zero fees, with only slippage costs, making it significantly cheaper for regular traders dealing with amounts from $1,000 to $100,000. Those discussing "free lunches" overlook one point — Lighter monetizes the speed advantage of large traders by charging institutions for instant channels, rather than exploiting retail traders.

But there's a key risk here: maintaining liquidity after TGE. Hyperliquid relies on real trading volume to break the "mining, selling, and dumping" curse, while Lighter has a clear VC unlock schedule. Whether it can retain users after the hype subsides is a matter of life and death. Based on abnormal trading signals from Polymarket and the progress of whale clearing, the probability of TGE happening within the year is indeed high, but after the airdrop expectations are fulfilled, capital flow will become brutal.

Key data points to watch: the day-over-day trading volume in the first three months post-TGE, the actual entry scale of institutional whales, and progress in integration with Robinhood. If Citadel's liquidity truly gets onboarded, this situation will change completely.