Lighter, one of the largest decentralized perpetuals exchanges by trading volume, said it will start permanently burning the LIT tokens it buys back with exchange revenue and will fund staking rewards from its ecosystem token reserve.
Lighter has bought back about 15.5 million LIT — roughly 6.3% of circulating supply — using exchange revenue since its token generation event, the company said in an X post Tuesday. Those tokens will now be withdrawn from the exchange and sent to a burn address on Ethereum mainnet, with the first burn set for the weeks after the end of the second quarter.
Separately, Lighter will begin paying staking rewards from its remaining ecosystem tokens, targeting an initial 6% annualized yield. With about 125 million LIT staked, that yield would distribute roughly 7.5 million LIT a year from a remaining reserve of 250 million.
The changes pull in two directions on supply. Burning bought-back tokens removes them from circulation, while paying staking yield from the reserve releases tokens that were not yet circulating, partly offsetting the burns. The update also answers requests from holders for clarity on what happens to the LIT the protocol repurchases, a recurring question across perpetuals exchanges that run buybacks.
