Buyback Radar

Lighter LIT

Sell signal activeRank#27▲4Score38

Sell signal since Nov 5. HR7 at 47% of the 90-day peak (2026-11-03); REV ratio 1.0×, HR ratio 0.6×. Still open: payout far below its peak still holds. See Signals.

Derivatives, zkLighter, Robinhood Chain, 192 days of data

Active signals 2

  • Sell signalsince Nov 5

    Paid to holders this week is 47% of its 90-day peak, after a buy signal.

    Payout far below its peak: revenue this week $1.4M, 1.0× the week before, paid to holders 0.6× the week before. Still open: payout far below its peak still holds.

  • Multiple below mediansince Oct 30

    Multiple 14.6×, below the 20.7× median of Derivatives (6 tokens).

Market cap

$775.1M

price $3.09 · 7d −7.8% · 30d −8.8%

FDV $3.04B (3.9× market cap)

source defillama

Buyback revenue / year

$53.2M

holders revenue of the last 30 days, $4.4M, × 365 ÷ 30

Buybackbuyback share 81%

Buys back 6.9% of its market cap a year, using 81¢ of every $1 it earns.

Multiple

14.6×

peer median 20.7× (Derivatives, 6 tokens), against 14.6× here

Run-rate

16.9×

last 7 days $883k × 52 = $45.9M a year

last week's payout in line with the 30-day pace

What we checked

  1. Valuation

    Multiple 14.6×, 1.4× cheaper than its Derivatives peers (median 20.7×, 6 tokens). The group's largest earner Hyperliquid trades at 20.2×: 1.4× cheaper per dollar returned to holders. On total revenue: 11.8×, in line with the revenue peer median.

  2. Distribution

    Buyback: Revenue buys the token on the market; the tokens stay in circulation (treasury, stakers or LPs). Holders got $4.4M of $5.4M revenue in 30 days → buyback share 81%. DefiLlama: “Token Buy Back: LIT token buybacks from treasury.”

  3. Sustainability

    Holders were paid on 30 of 30 days (100%); largest single day 19% of the month's holders revenue; paid to holders this week: 47% of the best week in 90 days (more than half below peak). Revenue +3% over 7 days and +14% over 30 days, price −9% over 30 days.

What this does not tell you

The figures come from DefiLlama's adapter for each child protocol. Only a few tokens have an on-chain check (see How the buyback really works); for the rest, whether the tokens were really bought, burned or parked in a treasury wallet is not checked here. Unlocks count where DefiLlama or our research has a vesting schedule; team discretion and liquidity depth only once researched.

Flags

  • Sell signalactive since Nov 5; HR7 at 47% of the 90-day peak (2026-11-03); REV ratio 1.0×, HR ratio 0.6×. Still open: payout far below its peak still holds. See Signals
  • Payout >50% below peakthis week's holders revenue is 47% of its best week in the last 90 days ($1.9M)

How the buyback really works

Researched Nov 1, 2026 · 4 wallets: 3 high, 1 medium confidence

  1. The moneyPaid from ongoing revenue
  2. The buyerThe team decides when and how much
  3. The tokensBought tokens are burnedBurned quarterly; the burned LIT appears to come from reserves (net effect uncertain)

The project does not say what share of its revenue goes to buybacks; DefiLlama books 81% of its revenue as holders revenue.

On-chain: not measurable with our sources (buybacks happen on the zkLighter L2 (treasury account 0); this verifier has no zkLighter source, and the quarterly burns on Ethereum are not a 30-day buyback).

Method: not measurable: buybacks happen on the zkLighter L2 (treasury account 0); this verifier has no zkLighter source, and the quarterly burns on Ethereum are not a 30-day buyback. Checked November 12, 2026.

Red flags 6

  • Lighter describes buybacks as 'depending on market conditions'. There is no fixed percentage and execution is discretionary via treasury account #0.
  • Burns only happen quarterly. In between, the purchased LIT sits in the treasury.
  • Origin of the burned LIT (seen on-chain, researcher's interpretation): for both burns, the burned amount first came from EOA 0xe554dcb002E4f3546d67E6dEed84323eed989D62, which holds 231.8M LIT. Shortly after the burn, the same amount went from contract 0x3B4D794a66304F130a4Db8F2551B0070dfCf5ca7 (proxy holding 149.5M LIT, presumably the zkLighter L1 bridge) via the Safe to EOA 0x1a51016FAD47dE690D1f48ADF2F6407f3CdC160d. That EOA has since paid out about 10M LIT to many addresses. The burned LIT therefore appears to be reserve LIT, while the bought-back LIT goes back into circulation ('economically equivalent' according to secondary sources). The net supply effect is therefore uncertain.
  • Buyback verification relies on Lighter's own zk-rollup and explorer API (elliot.ai). There is no independent explorer.
  • On 2026-12-27 the cliff unlock of team (26%) and investors (24%) begins, together 500M LIT, linear over 3 years. That is orders of magnitude larger than the burns.
  • Staking yield has come from the ecosystem reserve since 2026-06-30, not from revenue. Revenue fell sharply after the peak in Nov 2025; the buyback rate may exceed current fee revenue (DefiLlama's calculation allows negative protocol revenue).
Buyback wallets 4
Sources 10

Open the buyback wallets in their explorer and look for regular purchases of the token.

Check it yourself (technical)

Buybacks: Lighter explorer API https://explorer.elliot.ai/api/accounts/0/logs?pub_data_type=Trade&limit=100&offset=N (newest first; paginate past t-30d; rate limit about 200/min). Filter on trade_pubdata.market_index==2049. A purchase by the treasury is (is_taker_ask==0 and taker_account_index=='0') or (is_taker_ask==1 and maker_account_index=='0'). Sum price*size in USDC and count sales separately; this is exactly the adapter's logic (fees/lighterv2). Sample 2026-10-31, 16:03–22:31 UTC: about $16.2k bought and $0 sold. Burns: LIT Transfers (0x232ce3bd...) with to=0x...dEaD, or the difference in balanceOf(0xdead). They happen quarterly: tx 0x4b82f8a7ec5bd5d45f7669a4c5e6bb686d86ce8229e1aa54d8a5ae13b3908c5f (2026-07-10 22:41 UTC, 15,638,702 LIT) and tx 0x208df37eb2d09474fc01347b7f5dc153b5dbae93effd516249685f5515dedb4a (2026-10-09 19:37 UTC, 2,452,017 LIT). Compare the LIT bought per quarter with the LIT burned, and also trace the origin of the burned LIT (see red flags).

Holders revenue / revenue (30d)
$4.4M / $5.4M
last 30 closed days
To holders
Buys back 6.9% of its market cap a year
FDV / dilution
$3.04B / 3.9×
FDV ÷ market cap
Price 7d / 30d
−7.8% / −8.8%
Revenue growth 7d / 30d
+3% / +14%
versus the period before
Divergence
0.23
revenue growth minus price growth, 30d
DEX liquidity
$2.2M
DexScreener, representative pools
24h volume
$56.1M
all markets, CoinGecko
Unlocks 30d
$0
vesting schedule, checked by hand: nothing unlocks
Revenue multiple
11.8×
market cap ÷ revenue per year
Fee multiple
9.9×
market cap ÷ fees per year
Distance to peak
47%
this week ÷ best week of 90 days
Data since
May 4
first day with holders revenue

Holders revenue and price

Holders revenue per day7-day averagePrice (right axis)▲ ▼ signal days (history below)

Multiple over time

today 14.6× (scored) · peer median 20.7×

Market cap at close ÷ (holders revenue of the previous 30 days × 365 ÷ 30), with holders revenue capped at revenue and × the type factor: the same effective multiple as the peer median. Values above 100× are drawn at the top. Bands as on the meter; dashed line = peer median today.

Signal history

Signal history of this token: date, type, price at the signal, price after 7 and 30 days, change since the signal and the outcome
DateSignalPrice thenAfter 7dAfter 30dSinceOutcome
November 6, 2026Sell signalactive$3.38——−9%30-day check: day 6
October 30, 2026New in top 20closed Nov 1: now ranked #32$3.10+7%—0%not counted
October 31, 2026Multiple below medianactive$3.13+6%—−1%30-day check: day 11
October 31, 2026Revenue jumpclosed Nov 5: the condition no longer holds$3.13+6%—−1%30-day check: day 11

Versus peers

Derivatives · 6 tokens · median multiple 20.7× · Hyperliquid is valued 21.9× higher. Per dollar that counts for holders, Lighter is 1.4× cheaper.

Main-ranking peers only. Multiples count holders revenue capped at revenue, × the type factor (buyback 1 · buyback + burn 1 · burn 0.75 · mixed 0.75 · distribution 0.5 · unclear 0.5 · ve-distribution 0.25).

This token against its main-ranking peers: multiple, revenue multiple, buyback share, holders revenue, market cap and revenue growth
TokenDistributionMultipleRevenue multipleBuyback shareTo holders 30dMarket capRev. growth 30d
Lighterthis tokenBuyback14.6×11.8×81%$4.4M$775.1M+14%
edgeXBuyback16.0×7.0×44%$622k$120.8M−43%
HyperliquidleaderBuyback + burn20.2×20.2×100%$68.8M$16.94B−3%
ApeX ProtocolMixed21.2×15.9×100%$145k$28.2M−21%
GMXDistribution37.0×13.5×73%$354k$79.6M+15%
dYdXDistribution51.6×25.8×100%$240k$75.2M−15%
Score build-up38 of 100

Total score = 35% valuation + 25% momentum + 20% divergence + 20% quality − penalties, clamped to 0–100. Every number here can be recomputed from the figures on this page.

38of 100#27▲4top 52%
Valuation 18.4Momentum 12.0Divergence 3.0Quality 15.1penalties −10= 38.4
Valuation35%
52Valuation 52.5: HR half 54.9 (multiple 14.57×; 100 at ≤3×, 0 at ≥100×, log scale), revenue half 50.0 (revenue peer value 1.00×; 0 at ≤0.33×, 50 at 1×, 100 at ≥3×, log scale).Average of two halves. HR half: linear in log(multiple), 100 at ≤ 3×, 0 at ≥ 100×, 0 without effective HR. Revenue half: linear in log(revenue peer value), 0 at ≤ 0.33×, 50 at 1×, 100 at ≥ 3×; neutral 50 when the peer group falls back to the universe.
Momentum25%capped
48Momentum 47.9: m = 0.5·g7 0.032 + 0.3·(ln(day jump 0.79) clamped ±1.5 = −0.240) + 0.2·g30 0.134 = −0.029; 0 at ≤−0.7, 50 at 0, 100 at ≥1.1.m = 0.5·g7 + 0.3·ln(day jump, clamped ±1.5) + 0.2·g30; 0 at m ≤ −0.7, 50 at 0, 100 at ≥ 1.1. Neutral 50 when g7 or g30 is missing; a missing day jump counts as 0.
Divergence20%capped
1515 before the peak capDivergence 15.1: d = g30 − p30 = 0.226; 0 at ≤0, 100 at ≥1.5.d = max(0, g30 − p30) when g30 > 0; 0 at d ≤ 0, 100 at d ≥ 1.5, linear.
Quality20%
75Quality 75.4: mean of days HR>0 100% → 100.0 (0 at ≤30%, 100 at ≥90%), largest day 19% of HR30 → 91.6 (0 at ≥60%, 100 at ≤15%), distance to peak 0.47 → 34.4 (0 at ≤0.25, 100 at ≥0.9).Average of: share of days with HR > 0 (0 at ≤ 30%, 100 at ≥ 90%), 1 − largest day ÷ HR30 (0 at ≥ 60%, 100 at ≤ 15%) and distance to peak (0 at ≤ 0.25, 100 at ≥ 0.9).
  • Penalty −5 (dilution_above_2): dilution ratio 3.92 above 2.
  • Penalty −5 (team_discretion): buyback at the team's discretion.

HR7 is below 50% of its 90-day peak: momentum and divergence are capped at 50. This is not a penalty; the distance already counts in quality.

Penalties−10

−5Dilution ratio above 2dilution ratio 3.92 above 2
−5Buyback at the team's discretionbuyback at the team's discretion

8 rules not applied, 2 wait for research data.

Where the numbers come from
Revenue source
3 active children
DefiLlama adapter per child
Price and market cap
defillama / defillama
latest fetch
Scored on
November 11, 2026
as-of date of the last compute run
On-chain verified
not measurable
checked Nov 12
Protocols behind this token3 at DefiLlama

Per protocol: DefiLlama's methodology text, the distribution type we read from it and the sentence that decided it. The token takes the type of the protocol that returns the most to holders.

  • Lighter Perps
    Derivatives · zkLighter
    type buyback · source label
    “Token Buy Back: LIT token buybacks from treasury.”

    LIT token buybacks from treasury. The protocol uses fees to buy back LIT tokens from the market.

    Token Buy Back
    LIT token buybacks from treasury. Buybacks can be tracked at https://app.lighter.xyz/explorer/accounts/0
    adapter on GitHub ↗
  • Lighter Robinhood Perps
    Derivatives · Robinhood Chain
    type unclear · source text
    “Fees going to governance token holders”

    Fees going to governance token holders

    adapter on GitHub ↗
  • Lighter Spot
    Dexs · zkLighter, Robinhood Chain
    type unclear · source text
    “Money going to governance token holders”

    Money going to governance token holders

    adapter on GitHub ↗