The grand token launch at the end of the year kicks off with an interesting comparison between Lighter and Hyperliquid.

After reviewing the discussions, the community is divided into two factions: one optimistic about Lighter's airdrop taking off within the year backed by giants like Coinbase and Robinhood, and the other questioning whether its ecosystem expansion space is too limited, fearing a collapse after the TGE due to waning incentives.

A closer look at their differences actually explains the situation quite well. Lighter's zero-fee model appears more user-friendly, but fundamentally it charges institutions for speed advantages—this approach is indeed friendly to retail investors and attractive to market makers. In contrast, Hyperliquid's tiered fee structure based on trading volume disadvantages small accounts.

Technically, Lighter integrates ETH mainnet liquidity on L2, supporting bridgeless cross-chain transfers with ZK technology, making its security more robust than Hyperliquid's multi-signature cross-chain bridge. HyperEVM and HyperCore sharing resources can cause conflicts, whereas Lighter's front-end and back-end design isolates components more cleanly.

However, the pessimistic view hits a sore spot—whether trading volume can be maintained after the airdrop ends is a matter of life and death. Hyperliquid has survived this phase and grown stronger; whether Lighter can replicate that depends on genuine user stickiness. The "Robinhood-Lighter-Citadel" triangle sounds promising, but if it truly integrates into traditional finance, the game rules will change.

Anyway, during this period before the TGE, there's high interest and significant debate, and the enthusiasm should definitely be sustained until the end of the year.