Why Lighter’s Potential Outshines Hyperliquid and Aster When comparing competing PerpDEXs, two factors matter most: - Technical solution - Market size Without a clear understanding of the technical solution, it’s impossible to accurately assess a project’s market size. Looking at the three largest PerpDEXs today, the gap is striking: 1. Lighter: $90B 2. Aster: $8B 3.Hyperliquid: $2B Lighter’s addressable market is 44x larger than Hyperliquid’s and 11x larger than Aster’s. This difference is critical. _______________ Hyperliquid: Hitting a Ceiling Hyperliquid has already reached ~$2B TVL. To grow 40–50x from here would take many years. So far, only Ethereum itself has achieved this kind of scale, and it outpaces all competing L1s by a wide margin. Hyperliquid also faces the risk of isolation: if you remove Hyperliquid, the Hyper EVM ecosystem essentially disappears. Aster: Reliant on Binance Aster operates in the BNB Chain ecosystem, which has an $8B TVL. Furthermore, they lack direct DeFi composability with other projects in the ecosystem. Their main growth driver is the entire Binance ecosystem, but CZ has started distancing himself from the project, meaning they can't rely solely on Binance. Lighter: Built on Ethereum Lighter enters an ecosystem with nearly $100B in TVL - by far the largest and most established DeFi market. Ethereum already supports dozens of billion-dollar protocols like Aave, Uniswap, Lido, Curve, EigenLayer, Pendle, Ethena and etc. Each benefits from Ethereum’s powerful network effect, where scale reinforces trust, adoption, and liquidity. Is the same with Hyper EVM and BNB Chain? - No But Ethereum still lacks a flagship PerpDEX. This gap is Lighter’s opportunity. If Lighter can become Ethereum’s leading PerpDEX, its potential valuation could easily reach tens of billions, comparable to what Uniswap, Aave, and Ethena have achieved at their peaks. Unlike Hyperliquid or Aster, Lighter doesn’t need to build an ecosystem from scratch - it can integrate directly into Ethereum’s existing liquidity and user base. ____________ The Investor’s Lens From my experience, 2 rules matter most when evaluating opportunities: - The market must be large - The market must not be dependent on a single entity If even one point is missing, there is a high risk of isolation. - Hyperliquid risks isolation, bc requiring 5-10 years of ecosystem-building to rival Ethereum. - Aster risks over-dependence on Binance, CZ and BNB Chain. - Lighter avoids both risks: it’s entering the largest, fastest-growing DeFi market with a clear structural advantage. Lighter is uniquely positioned to become Ethereum’s dominant PerpDEX - potentially one of the most valuable protocols in the entire DeFi ecosystem. _____________ If you liked the research, plz like/retweet and follow to @Eugene_Bulltime

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