Lighter vs BloFin

Lighter or BloFin: which to use

Lighter vs BloFin is a decentralized exchange against a centralized one. On Lighter you trade from a self-custody wallet without ID, at 0 bp maker and 0 bp taker on the default Standard account, with up to 50x. BloFin holds your funds in an account, lets you trade futures without ID inside limits, and charges 2 bp maker and 6 bp taker, with up to 150x. As of 1 October 2026 BloFin lists 495 perp markets to Lighter's 194. Custody, fees, leverage and market count are the main differences.

How each exchange is built

Lighter is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that runs on zkLighter. You trade from a self-custody wallet. It matches orders on a central limit order book, so your orders rest on the book until they are filled.

BloFin is a centralized exchange (CEX): you open an account with the company, and the account holds your funds. It also matches orders on a central limit order book.

For the trader, the difference is custody. On Lighter you trade from your own wallet. On BloFin your funds sit in an account at the company.

Fees and what they mean

Lighter's base tier is 0 bp maker and 0 bp taker, per Lighter's fee page. That applies to the default Standard account, whose taker orders wait 300 ms. A Premium account has a 140 ms wait and pays 0.4 bp maker and 2.8 bp taker.

BloFin's base tier is 2 bp maker and 6 bp taker, per BloFin's fee page.

A market order pays the taker fee to open and again to close. That is 12 bp per round trip on BloFin, 0 bp on a Lighter Standard account and 5.6 bp on Premium. A limit order that rests on the book pays the maker fee instead: 2 bp on BloFin, 0 bp on Standard and 0.4 bp on Premium.

Fees are only part of a trade's cost. Slippage, the price you move by eating through the order book, grows with size. The cost table above adds the taker fee twice and measured slippage at each size from $1k to $5M, so it shows more than the fee alone.

Markets and leverage

As of 1 October 2026 BloFin lists 495 active perps, 115 of them stocks, commodities, FX or other real-world assets. Lighter lists 194, 75 of them real-world assets.

BloFin allows up to 150x and Lighter up to 50x on their highest-leverage markets. Most markets allow less on both.

Lighter pays funding every hour on every market. BloFin pays every 1 hour, 4 hours or 8 hours depending on the market, so check a market's interval before you hold it. An hourly market settles 24 times a day, an 8-hour market three times. The list further down this page shows the markets both exchanges have and each one's funding rate.

Who can use them

Lighter requires no ID. The card deposit on-ramp is optional. Lighter is closed to the US, Canada, the UK, China, Russia, Ukraine and sanctioned countries.

BloFin lets you trade futures without ID, with no leverage limit. Withdrawals are capped at 20,000 USDT a day until you verify, and verification lifts the limits.

Vaults, tokens and points

Lighter runs LLP (Lighter Liquidity Provider), a vault that makes markets and takes liquidations, so its depositors carry the traders' profit and loss. It takes USDC, has no lock and charges no operator fee. Lighter's token is $LIT, and as of 19 September 2026 its points program was in Season 3.

Reading the numbers on this page

Both exchanges publish open interest as one side of open positions, so the open interest row and chart above compare like with like.

BloFin publishes no TVL, as is usual for a centralized exchange, so that row and chart show Lighter alone. For Lighter it is DefiLlama's figure for the deposits its bridge holds.

Which one fits you

• Pick Lighter if you want to keep funds in your own wallet and trade without ID.
• Pick Lighter if you trade with market orders and accept the 300 ms taker wait on Standard: 0 bp against 6 bp.
• Pick Lighter if you want every market on an hourly funding schedule, or a vault with no lock to deposit in.
• Pick BloFin if you prefer an exchange account and want to trade futures without ID inside its limits.
• Pick BloFin if you need more than 50x, up to 150x on its highest-leverage markets.
• Pick BloFin if you want a wider list of markets: 495 against 194, with 115 real-world asset markets.