Onchain derivatives exchange Lighter has expanded its stock-based perpetual futures market to operate 24 hours a day on weekdays, moving beyond U.S. stock market hours, The Block reported on Tuesday.
Lighter marketing lead Sebastian J. said on social media Discord, "We plan to expand to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week trading soon."
Lighter’s move is similar to a model that centralised exchanges (CEXs) have introduced gradually. Kraken and Coinbase have supported 24-hour weekday trading for CME-based products such as gold, oil and stock indexes. BitMEX also said on the same day it will operate around the clock, year-round, U.S. stock and index-based perpetual futures including Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Meta and Nasdaq.
Perpetual futures are futures products that let traders bet on price movements of assets they do not hold, without an expiry date.
Lighter is a layer-2-based DEX using Ethereum ZK rollups and has a model similar to Hyperliquid. In November and December last year, it recorded monthly trading volume that exceeded Hyperliquid. It is also reported to have carried out a buyback after recently launching its own token, LIT.
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr