Lighter, a leading zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup-based perpetual futures decentralized exchange (DEX) on Ethereum Layer 2, has announced a strategic partnership with Chainlink, the industry-standard oracle network.
This collaboration designates Chainlink as Lighter’s official oracle partner, integrating Chainlink Data Streams to power real-world asset (RWA) derivatives markets with high-fidelity pricing data, as noted in the announcement.
The integration will let Lighter access Chainlink’s real-time data feeds that provide pricing for commodities, equities, and foreign exchange (FX) markets. This data is critical for executing key protocol operations, including triggering liquidations, calculating margin consumption, and processing conditional and limit orders on Lighter.
Lighter’s rise as a leading perp DEX
Launched as a ZK-rollup perpetual futures DEX, Lighter combines the security of Ethereum’s mainnet with the efficiency of Layer 2 scaling solutions. The official data from its explorer shows that Lighter has attracted over 430K users and processed more than 22 billion transactions so far.
Lighter has integrated zero-knowledge proofs to ensure transactions are verified with high accuracy and transparency, appealing to both seasoned traders and decentralized finance (DeFi) novices. The platform’s approach has driven its total value locked (TVL) to surge 2000x in the past six months, currently sitting at $1.14 billion, as per DeFillama data.
Market data further shows that Lighter has surpassed Hyperliquid in 24-hour perpetual trading volume, accumulating over $8.85 billion, positioning it at the first place among all decentralized perpetual trading platforms. Although the open interest is still highest on Hyperliquid.
The growing landscape of Perp DEXs
The perpetual DEX market is currently experiencing a transformative phase, with trading volumes soaring and challenging the dominance of centralized giants like Binance and Coinbase.
According to a recent report from 21Shares, a leading asset management firm, the perp DEX market grew from merely reaching a billion in monthly trading volume to over $100 billion. Throughout 2025, Hyperliquid was the leader due to its early-established market positioning, which had around 80% of total market share. However, by October 2025, its dominance had been challenged by emerging competitors like Aster and Lighter.
The shift toward decentralized derivatives trading is largely driven by increasing regulatory pressures on centralized exchanges and a demand for transparency and user control. Recent incidents like MEXC freezing user funds and its fallout—where the exchange witnessed huge withdrawals in funds—has further fueled the need for secure, decentralized platforms among crypto traders.
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