The Peter Thiel-backed Lighter perpetual DEX has accelerated the buyback of its native LIT token. On April 8, the project announced that it had purchased and blocked 10 million LIT. This represents 4% of the current circulation of 250 million tokens since its debut last December.
A month ago, the buyback program amounted to 3% of the circulating supply. At the current rate, the project is buying back around 1% of the supply, or an average of 2.4 million LIT per month. If the trend continues, it would take the DEX approximately 10 months to lock in the entire current circulating supply.
It is worth pointing out, however, that the total supply of LIT is capped at 1 billion and only 250 million LIT tokens were released after its debut. The first wave of unlocks will begin in December 2026.
In the meantime, how is the market reacting to LIT’s aggressive buyout?
Telegram Spikes Lighter Traction
Well, the reception has been very positive and optimistic. Since late March, the token has recovered over 40%, going from a record low of $0.74 to over $1.13.
LIT’s uptrend momentum was further boosted by a recent Telegram integration. The privacy-focused messenger will use Lighter to power its native trading with up to 50x leverage across crypto and non-crypto assets.
It’s been about a week since Telegram integration. So, AMBCrypto dug deeper to check whether or not the partnership is generating significant traction for the DEX.
According to Lightalytics data, Lighter saw around 40,000 new registered users after the Telegram update.
Will LIT extend the 40% rally?
However, Open Interest (OI), which tracks users’ open bets, saw only a slight improvement.
OI increased by approximately $40 million, from $675 million to $717 million. Interestingly, the little traction has seen daily earnings rise from $35,000 to over $100,000 in the last seven days.
Since most of the revenue is spent on buybacks, any further improvement in momentum could help support LIT’s recovery.
Despite this, one trader recently warned that the rally has reached the 200-EMA (Exponential Moving Average) – a key dynamic resistance that could derail the bulls in the near term. An extended rally could only be confirmed if the bulls move the 200-EMA into support.
Final Summary
- Lighter’s buyback program reached 10 million LIT, or 4% of the circulating supply of 250 million.
- An aggressive buyback program and the integration of Telegram fueled LIT’s 40% rise in April.
