Lighter vs Bybit

Lighter or Bybit: which to use

Lighter vs Bybit is a decentralized exchange against a centralized one. On Lighter you trade from your own wallet without ID, at 0 bp maker and 0 bp taker on the default Standard account, with up to 50x. Bybit requires standard verification for every product, holds your funds in an account, and charges 2 bp maker and 5.5 bp taker, with up to 150x. As of 1 October 2026 Bybit lists 857 markets to Lighter's 194. Custody, ID and fee rate decide it for most traders.

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.

Bybit 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 a self-custody wallet. On Bybit 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 is 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. Bybit's base tier is 2 bp maker and 5.5 bp taker, per Bybit's fee page.

A market order pays the taker fee to open and again to close: 0 bp per round trip on a Lighter Standard account, 5.6 bp on Lighter Premium, 11 bp on Bybit. A limit order that rests on the book pays the maker fee instead: 0 bp on Standard, 0.4 bp on Premium, 2 bp on Bybit.

The fee is only part of a trade's cost. The rest is slippage, the price you move by eating through the order book, which grows with size. The cost table above adds both at each size, and every exchange's trading cost is compared on one page.

Markets and leverage

As of 1 October 2026 Lighter lists 194 active perps, 75 of them stocks, commodities, FX or other real-world assets. Bybit lists 857, 237 of them real-world assets.

Lighter allows up to 50x and Bybit up to 150x on their highest-leverage markets; most markets allow less.

Lighter pays funding every hour on every market. Bybit pays every 1 hour, 4 hours or 8 hours depending on the market. 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 asks for no ID. The card deposit on-ramp is optional. Lighter is closed to the US, Canada, the UK, China, Russia, Ukraine and sanctioned countries. Bybit requires standard verification for every product.

Vaults, tokens and points

Lighter runs LLP (Lighter Liquidity Provider), a vault run by the exchange. It makes markets and takes liquidations, so its depositors carry the traders' profit and loss. It takes USDC deposits, 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

Bybit publishes open interest as longs plus shorts, both sides of every position. Lighter publishes one side of open positions. For the same positions Bybit's figure reads about twice as large, so the open interest row and chart above are not a like-for-like comparison of size.

Bybit publishes no TVL, as is usual for a centralized exchange, so the TVL row and chart show Lighter alone, as 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: 0 bp taker on the Standard account against 5.5 bp.
• Pick Lighter if you want every market on an hourly funding schedule, or a vault with no lock to deposit in.
• Pick Bybit if you prefer an exchange account and accept standard verification.
• Pick Bybit if you need more than 50x, up to 150x on its highest-leverage markets.
• Pick Bybit if you want a larger choice of markets: as of 1 October 2026, 857 perps, 237 of them real-world assets. See every exchange pair for other matchups.