The perpetual decentralized exchange Lighter, backed by Peter Thiel, has accelerated its buyback of the native LIT token, locking 10 million tokens, representing 4% of the circulating supply. The program’s pace suggests it could lock the entire current circulation within ten months if maintained. This activity, coupled with a recent integration with Telegram, has contributed to a 40% price recovery for LIT from its record low. The integration has driven a significant increase in new registered users and daily revenue for the platform.
Peter Thiel– backed perpetual decentralized exchange Lighter announced on April 8 that it had bought and locked 10 million of its native LIT tokens. This represents 4% of the current circulating supply of 250 million tokens since the project’s debut last December. The buyback program had reached 3% of the circulating supply a month earlier, indicating an accelerated pace.
At its current rate, the project is buying back about 1% of the supply, averaging 2.4 million LIT per month. If this trend persists, it would take approximately 10 months to lock the entire current circulating supply. The total supply of LIT is capped at 1 billion, with the first wave of unlocks scheduled for December 2026.
The market reception to the aggressive buyback has been positive and bullish. Since late March, the token has recovered by over 40%, rising from a record low of $0.74 to above $1.13. This uptrend momentum was further boosted by a recent integration with the privacy-focused messenger Telegram.
Telegram will use Lighter to power native trading with up to 50x leverage across crypto and non-crypto assets. According to Lightalytics data, Lighter recorded about 40,000 new registered users after the Telegram update. However, the Open Interest (OI), which tracks users’ opened bets, posted only a slight improvement, rising by about $40 from $675 million to $717 million.
Interestingly, this modest traction saw daily revenue rise from $35,000 to over $100,000 over the last seven days. Since most of this revenue is being channeled to buybacks, any further improved traction could help bolster LIT’s recovery. A trader recently cautioned that the rally had hit the 200-EMA (Exponential Moving Average), “A key dynamic resistance that may derail bulls in the near-term.”
The trader stated, “An extended rally could only be confirmed if bulls flip the 200-EMA into support.” The project’s buyback program has now reached 10 million LIT, or 4% of the circulating supply. The aggressive buyback and the Telegram integration together fueled LIT’s 40% rally in April.
