Lighter generates revenue through trading fees charged to takers on its on-chain order book. The protocol retains all fees as revenue.

Lighter is an app-specific zk-rollup (L2) purpose-built for order book trading. It operates its own chain with a custom execution environment, settling to Ethereum. The protocol supports perpetual futures and spot markets with sub-second finality and zero MEV.

Lighter team and investors own and govern the protocol. Lighter's investors include a16z, Lightspeed, Coatue, etc.

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Lighter

# Lighter Total value locked Methodology

## 1. Overview

Total value locked (TVL) is measured as the total value of user assets deposited into Lighter. Assets held in the exchange order book as well as assets deposited via bridge and custody contracts are included in this metric. TVL is utilized as a leading indicator for trading activity and liquidity within the Lighter decentralized exchange, though the assets can typically be withdrawn by depositors at any time.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain events**: ERC-20 `Transfer` events to and from bridge and custody contracts, and order book balances retrieved via direct contract state calls, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Robinhood Chain
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds and asset metadata (decimals) for deposited assets

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Order book balance extraction

- **Purpose**: Capture user balances held directly within the exchange order book
- **Logic**: Order book balances are retrieved via direct contract state calls. These balances are represented as active user deposits allocated to the order book for trading
- **Key fields**: `account_address`, `token_address`, `amount`

### Component B: Bridge and custody transfer tracking

- **Purpose**: Track net deposits held in bridge and custody contracts
- **Logic**: ERC-20 `Transfer` events are parsed to identify deposits and withdrawals. Deposits are identified as transfers to designated bridge and custody addresses, while withdrawals are identified as transfers from these addresses. On Ethereum and Arbitrum, transfers are filtered for specific USDC asset addresses, while on Robinhood Chain, all asset transfers are captured to account for multi-asset collateral (including USDG and tokenized stocks). Net deposits are calculated by subtracting withdrawals from deposits and aggregating the cumulative sum over time
- **Key fields**: `to_address`, `from_address`, `token_address`, `value`

### Component C: Balance aggregation and forward-filling

- **Purpose**: Combine order book balances and net bridge deposits into a continuous daily time series
- **Logic**: Order book balances and net bridge deposits are combined. To ensure daily continuity, balances are forward-filled for days without active transfers or state updates, which is particularly necessary to mark volatile assets like tokenized stocks to market daily
- **Key fields**: `timestamp`, `chain_id`, `token_address`, `net_deposits`

### Component D: USD conversion and final TVL aggregation

- **Purpose**: Normalize asset balances and convert them to USD to calculate total value locked
- **Logic**: Asset balances are normalized by decimal precision using asset metadata. The normalized balances are multiplied by end-of-day asset prices to determine the USD value. The USD values are aggregated daily across all assets and chains to produce the final total value locked metric
- **Key fields**: `net_deposits`, `decimals`, `asset_price`, `tvl`

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Total value locked (TVL)

Total value locked (TVL) — value deposited into the project's applications.

LighterLIT

Total value locked

Total value locked

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Chain breakdown