Lighter vs Coinbase International

Lighter or Coinbase International: which to use

Lighter vs Coinbase International 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 taker orders that wait 300 ms. Coinbase International requires ID and a suitability check, holds your funds in an account, and charges 2 bp maker and 4 bp taker. Both offer up to 50x. Custody, ID and the fee on market orders 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.

Coinbase International 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.

The Head to head table above shows the BTC order-book depth on each exchange. The difference for you is where the funds sit: in your wallet on Lighter, in an account at the company on Coinbase International.

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. Coinbase International's base tier is 2 bp maker and 4 bp taker, per its fee page.

A market order pays the taker fee to open and again to close. That is 0 bp per round trip on a Lighter Standard account, 5.6 bp on Premium and 8 bp on Coinbase International. A limit order that rests on the book pays the maker fee instead: 0 bp on Standard, 0.4 bp on Premium and 2 bp on Coinbase International.

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 fee and the measured slippage at each size from $1k to $5M, so a zero fee does not mean a zero round trip.

Markets and leverage

As of 1 October 2026 Lighter lists 194 active perps, 75 of them stocks, commodities, FX or other real-world assets. Coinbase International lists 131, 34 of them real-world assets. Both list real-world assets next to crypto on one exchange.

Both allow up to 50x on their highest-leverage market; most markets allow less. Both pay funding every 1 hour on every market. Funding is the periodic payment between longs and shorts, and a positive rate means longs pay shorts. An hourly interval settles 24 times a day. The list further down this page shows the markets both exchanges have, each one's funding rate and the spread between them.

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.

Coinbase International requires ID and a suitability check. Its perps are for eligible non-US countries, and are closed to US and UK retail.

Vault, token 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 for like.

Coinbase International publishes no TVL, as is usual for a centralized exchange, so the TVL row and chart show Lighter alone. That figure is DefiLlama's number for the deposits Lighter's 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 a Standard account: 0 bp taker against 4 bp.
• Pick Lighter if you want more markets, 194 against 131, and a vault with no lock to deposit in.
• Pick Coinbase International if you prefer an exchange account and accept ID and a suitability check.
• Pick Coinbase International if you would rather pay a 4 bp taker fee than accept the 300 ms taker wait on a Lighter Standard account.

Check the funding comparison for the spread between the two on each shared coin.