LIT is a recently popular perpetual contract project in the derivatives space, similar to ASTER and some newcomers, all working on decentralized perpetual trading products. Driven by the Airdrop launch, this month’s trading volume has surged to the TOP 3 in the perpdex track, but the open interest (OI) is only 1.54 billion, which is not particularly impressive among similar projects.

Looking at the fundamental data. The total token supply is 1 billion, with 25% in circulation initially. The opening price was around 2.37, corresponding to a market cap of 600 million. Fully diluted valuation would reach 2.37 billion. Interestingly, at the first opening, the price was 3.7, and the valuation had already skyrocketed to 3.7 billion. There must be a story behind this high opening gap.

The token distribution structure is as follows: 50% for the ecosystem (including 25% for initial circulation), 24% for institutions, and 26% for the team. The total fundraising amount is $89 million. Based on the institutional share, the average entry price for these institutions was about 0.37 per token. Compared to the current price, it’s a tenfold increase.

But here’s the key—currently, the 25% in circulation is entirely reserved for airdrops, meaning the amount of market value held by holders will face selling pressure proportional to their holdings. The high opening price, ongoing airdrops, and the possibility of short hedging all contribute to the logic behind the initial setup of short positions. How it performs later depends on whether the project team has manipulated the actual token distribution. For such new projects to succeed, it often depends on how many chips the team holds.