# Lighter

*The chain's official perps venue — a zero-fee ZK order-book DEX, USDG-collateralized, valued at ~$1.5B.*

Lighter is Robinhood Chain's official perpetuals venue, and it is the one core partner that does not really live on the chain. That is the key thing to understand. Lighter is a zero-fee perpetual-futures DEX built on custom zero-knowledge infrastructure — an application-specific ZK-rollup anchored to Ethereum that proves every order match, funding payment, and liquidation before settlement. So when eligible users trade perps through Robinhood Wallet with USDG as collateral, the trading happens on Lighter's own ZK stack, not in Robinhood Chain's own execution — which is exactly why the chain's onchain perps TVL and volume figures look small: Lighter's activity mostly sits outside them. The pedigree is serious. Founder Vladimir Novakovski is a former Citadel engineer, and Lighter raised $68m in November 2025 at a roughly $1.5bn valuation from Founders Fund and Ribbit, with Haun, Dragonfly, Craft, and Robinhood participating — Robinhood rarely makes venture investments, and reporting frames the perps partnership as the product of a long relationship. Lighter's whole pitch is verifiability plus zero retail fees: a central-limit order book with millisecond latency where correctness is cryptographically proven on Ethereum, positioned as a Hyperliquid rival. The honest caveats: it is the newest and least chain-native of the core partners, its economics depend on the same zero-fee-now dynamic as its rivals, and because it runs its own rollup, users should be clear that perps risk lives in Lighter's system, not Robinhood Chain's. For the wiki's purposes, Lighter is the perps liquidity of record for the chain — strong backers, real technology, and an accounting quirk that makes the chain's perps look quieter than they are.

## At a glance

- **Type:** defi
- **Category:** perps-derivatives
- **Status:** mainnet
- **Website:** https://lighter.xyz

## Key facts

- **What it is:** A zero-fee perpetual-futures DEX built on custom ZK infrastructure — an application-specific ZK-rollup anchored to Ethereum that proves order matching, funding, and liquidations before settlement. _(confidence 88%)_
- **Role on the chain:** The official perpetuals trading partner for Robinhood Chain; eligible users trade perps through Robinhood Wallet with USDG as collateral and quote asset. _(confidence 85%)_
- **Founder:** Vladimir Novakovski, a former Citadel engineer. _(confidence 85%)_
- **Funding:** Raised $68m in November 2025 at a ~$1.5bn valuation, led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital, with Haun Ventures, Dragonfly, Craft Ventures, and Robinhood participating. _(confidence 85%)_
- **Accounting quirk:** Because it runs its own ZK stack, Lighter's activity understates Robinhood Chain's onchain perps TVL and volume. _(confidence 82%)_

## Metrics

- **Reported valuation:** $1.5B

## Related entities

- [Arcus](https://hoodl2.com/entity/arcus) — competes with
- [Robinhood](https://hoodl2.com/entity/robinhood) — partners
- [Robinhood Chain](https://hoodl2.com/entity/robinhood-chain) — integrates
- [USDG (Global Dollar)](https://hoodl2.com/entity/usdg) — integrates
- [USDG (Global Dollar)](https://hoodl2.com/entity/usdg) — integrates
- [Arcus](https://hoodl2.com/entity/arcus) — competes with

## Sources

1. [DeFi founder raises $68 million for crypto trading protocol Lighter](https://fortune.com/2025/11/11/lighter-fundraise-founders-fund-ribbit-capital-haun-ventures-robinhood-vladimir-novakovski/) — Fortune
2. [Lighter Raises $68M at $1.5B Valuation](https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/11/11/lighter-raises-usd68m-at-usd1-5b-valuation-to-take-on-decentralized-derivatives-rivals) — CoinDesk
3. [Introduction — Lighter Docs](https://docs.lighter.xyz/) — Lighter
4. [Robinhood Chain goes live alongside Lighter perps](https://www.theblock.co/post/406918/robinhood-chain-goes-live-mainnet-alongside-24-7-tokenized-stocks-lighter-perps-planned-crypto-agentic-trading) — The Block
5. [Robinhood Chain's perps deal with Lighter spans 12 years of relationship building](https://cryptobriefing.com/robinhood-chain-lighter-perps-deal-12-years/) — Crypto Briefing

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Last reviewed: 13 Jul 2026  
Canonical: https://hoodl2.com/entity/lighter  
Source: HoodL2 (https://hoodl2.com) — an independent, sourced reference for the Robinhood Chain ecosystem. Not affiliated with Robinhood Markets or its subsidiaries.