LIT Token Plunges 22% as Lighter Airdrop Distribution Goes Live
LIT, the newly launched token of decentralized perpetuals change Lighter, slid sharply in pre-market buying and selling on Tuesday as its long-awaited airdrop distribution went reside, triggering heavy promoting from early recipients and leveraged merchants.
The token initially climbed to a post-launch high of $4.04 shortly after buying and selling started earlier than reversing course and falling to round $2.62, a drop of roughly 22.2%.
That value additionally marked LIT’s lowest stage since launch, reflecting sustained draw back strain as the market absorbed the big token distribution.
LIT Sees Heavy Trading as Selling Outpaces Early Accumulation
However, regardless of this extreme drop in value, the buying and selling quantity elevated over the previous 24 hours, as LIT skilled 13.43 million in buying and selling quantity, which is nearly 3 times the quantity that was skilled the day earlier than.
The elevated quantity was a sign of upper involvement out there, which was principally due to volatility, short-term hypothesis, and unwinding of positions, and never as a results of long-term accumulation.
LIT is buying and selling practically 35% lower than it was at its peak, and the token is now squarely in a post-launch correctional interval, with the value discovery nonetheless underway.
Data on-chain that was based mostly on the airdrop provided further data in regards to the promoting strain, and the evaluation of 10,000 wallets carried out simply after the distribution revealed that roughly 198.86 million LIT tokens had been obtained by the individuals initially.
The current balances in all these wallets are roughly 183.29 million LIT, which implies that a big a part of the airdropped provide has already been decreased.
Only 7.77% of wallets elevated their holdings, whereas 45.88% lowered their balances and 46.35% made no modifications, indicating that promoting exercise outweighed accumulation.
In absolute phrases, about 150.34 million LIT, or roughly 75.6% of the airdropped tokens, stay held. Around 48.52 million tokens, or 24.4%, have been offered or transferred.
At the identical time, solely about 32.95 million LIT, representing 16.57% of the overall, may be categorized as collected past preliminary allocations.
The imbalance means that buy-side conviction has lagged behind sell-side exercise within the early buying and selling window.
Lighter’s LIT Joins considered one of Crypto’s Largest Airdrops even as Tokenomics Come Under Scrutiny
Derivatives market information bolstered this image, as internet circulation indicators for LIT perpetual contracts confirmed constant aggressive promoting throughout a number of time frames.
Net delta was unfavourable by about $108,000 over one hour, widened to just about $1 million over 4 hours, and deteriorated to greater than $6 million over ten hours.
Hourly internet circulation information over the past day additionally confirmed repeated unfavourable swings, suggesting that value rebounds had been met with renewed promoting.
The sell-off adopted one of many largest token giveaways in crypto historical past as Lighter airdropped roughly $675 million price of LIT tokens to early customers, rating the distribution as the tenth largest airdrop by greenback worth, according to CoinGecko information.
The airdrop surpassed 1inch Network’s 2020 distribution however remained effectively beneath Uniswap’s record-setting $6.43 billion airdrop.
Some early customers reported receiving six-figure allocations, highlighting the dimensions of the distribution.
At the identical time, debate around Lighter’s tokenomics intensified. Half of the overall LIT provide is allotted to customers, companions, and development initiatives, whereas the remaining 50% is reserved for the crew and traders, topic to a one-year cliff and multi-year vesting.
Community reacts as @Lighter_xyz’s $LIT token launches, with half the provision for insiders, sparking debate over its equity as a community-focused launch.#Lighter #Tokenomicshttps://t.co/aZkUeD9UeK
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) December 30, 2025
The launch comes as Lighter continues to put up robust buying and selling metrics inside a quickly increasing on-chain derivatives market.
The platform processed roughly $3.90 billion in 24-hour perpetual quantity and about $201 billion over 30 days, putting it among the many prime decentralized venues alongside Hyperliquid and Aster.
The broader perpetuals DEX sector has seen explosive development in 2025, with cumulative quantity reaching $12.09 trillion and greater than $7.9 trillion generated this 12 months alone.
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