Lighter, the second-largest decentralized perpetuals exchange, was one of many platforms that experienced platform outages during the crypto market’s flash crash on Oct. 10. To compensate affected users, Lighter has distributed points that will translate to a future token airdrop.
Lighter announced its reimbursement plan on Oct. 14, dropping 250,000 points to traders affected by the platform’s technical issues during and after the crash.
While points may seem like nebulous compensation for lost funds, Lighter points are in high demand, reaching as high as $100 per point on OTC markets before Friday’s events. As of Oct. 16, the highest bid sits at $81.
The team has faced some backlash over its compensation package, but in general, Lighter traders seem satisfied with the response, while depositors in the platform’s Lighter Liquidity Pool (LLP) are unimpressed.
When broken down, traders affected by the outage lost $25 million and received 150,000 points, LLP contributors got hit by a 5% loss (roughly 21.5 million) but received just 25,000 points, and then the platform suffered a post-crash sequencer outage where traders lost another $7 million, which was reimbursed with 75,000 points.
In summation, Lighter users lost roughly $50 million during the platform’s downtime and, as compensation, received $20 million worth of Lighter points. Of course, OTC prices are only indicative, and there’s no guarantee that Lighter tokens will fetch the same valuation after launch.
It is also worth noting that a significant portion of the $25 million lost in the crash during the outage was likely unsalvageable, as prices moved so quickly and violently that many traders would have been liquidated regardless of whether the platform was operational.
Despite the setback, Lighter remains the second-most-popular perps DEX in DeFi, only trailing Hyperliquid. The DEX still maintains over $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), and has processed $7.3 billion in volume over the last 24 hours, compared to Hyperliquid’s $8.8 billion
Lighter TVL and Perp Volume – DeFiLlama
