Lighter vs Deribit

Lighter or Deribit: which to use

Lighter vs Deribit 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, whose taker orders wait 300 ms. Deribit requires ID, proof of address and a financial profile before any deposit, holds your funds in an account, and charges 1.5 bp maker and 3.5 bp taker. Both offer up to 50x. Custody, ID and the taker delay 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.

Deribit 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 your funds stay in your wallet. On Deribit they 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. Deribit's base tier is 1.5 bp maker and 3.5 bp taker, read from Deribit's API.

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 7 bp on Deribit. A limit order that rests on the book pays the maker fee instead: 0 bp on Standard, 0.4 bp on Premium and 1.5 bp on Deribit.

The fee is only part of the cost. Slippage, the price you move by eating through the order book, grows with size. The round trip in the cost table above adds it to the taker fee at each size from $1k to $5M, so a 0 bp fee does not mean a free trade.

Markets and leverage

As of 1 October 2026 Lighter has 194 active perpetual markets, 75 of them stocks, commodities, FX or other real-world assets. Deribit has 134, 34 of them real-world assets. You can browse these on the real-world asset perps page.

Both exchanges offer up to 50x on their highest-leverage market, and most markets allow less. Both pay funding every 1 hour on every market, so a position settles funding 24 times a day. 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.

Deribit requires KYC: ID, proof of address and a financial profile before any deposit. It is closed to the US, Canada, Japan and retail UK clients.

Vaults, tokens and points

Lighter runs LLP (Lighter Liquidity Provider), a vault run by the exchange that takes deposits in USDC. It makes markets and takes liquidations, so its depositors carry the traders' profit and loss. It has no lock and 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.

Deribit is centralized, so it publishes no TVL. The TVL row and chart show Lighter alone, as DefiLlama's figure for the deposits its bridge holds. The Head to head table highlights the better figure of each row, so a blank TVL on one side is a missing figure, not a zero.

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 mostly with market orders and can accept the 300 ms taker wait: 0 bp taker on Standard.
• Pick Lighter if you want more stock, commodity and FX perps: 75 real-world asset markets against 34.
• Pick Lighter if you want a vault with no lock and no operator fee, or a points program in Season 3.
• Pick Deribit if you prefer an account at a company and accept ID, proof of address and a financial profile.

For a side-by-side of other pairs, see all exchange comparisons.