#ETF与衍生品 The end of the year is really full of gossip in the crypto world. There are rumors about Lighter's TGE flying everywhere, a group of people are betting $125,000 on Polymarket that the coin will be launched by the end of the year, and Coinbase has also officially announced its token listing roadmap. This matter is highly likely to happen.

But what's interesting here is that many people are treating Lighter as a substitute for Hyperliquid, but the differences are quite significant. I took a close look, and Lighter's zero-fee model, L2 architecture, and privacy protection are indeed smoother than Hype. Especially the concept of "universal full-warehouse margin," which allows users holding stETH on the mainnet to earn staking rewards while trading with collateral—this operation is quite powerful.

However, what really makes me a bit cautious is the death spiral problem after TGE. Hyperliquid previously built up hype through point incentives, and after the airdrop ended, trading volume still relied on ecosystem self-sustainability. Now, with Lighter full of VC unlock schedules, after the airdrop is fulfilled, will many people rush to the next new project? Will the liquidity flow back to Hype once S3 incentives are activated? This is the real test of the product's strength.

It seems that the combination of Robinhood + Citadel sounds very promising, but whether the compliance advantages and the business closed-loop can truly translate into sustained trading volume remains to be seen after the end of the year.