Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Golem (@web3_golem)
Data from the prediction platform Polymarket shows that the expected probability of "Lighter will airdrop on December 29" has plummeted from 87% four days ago to 25%, nearly halving.
Although the drop in probability does not directly equate to the cancellation of the airdrop, market sentiment has clearly cooled. As of the time of writing, Lighter has still not announced a detailed token economic model, which doesn't feel at all like the atmosphere leading up to a TGE and airdrop. Interestingly, LIT spot trading is already be seen on the Lighter Staging page today, but no one knows how long this testing phase will last.(Odaily Note: Staging is a pre-release environment in the product development process, situated between the Testing environment and the Production (live) environment, generally seen as the final rehearsal before a product's official launch.)
It is important to note that the Polymarket prediction regarding the Lighter airdrop uses Eastern Time (ET) for settlement. Therefore, for investors in the UTC+8 time zone, for the "Lighter will airdrop on December 29" market to settle as "no," Lighter must not airdrop before 13:00 on December 30. Investors in other time zones should convert the time accordingly.
Although Lighter's Head of Market, Pilla.eth, had previously clearly stated in an AMA that both the TGE and airdrop would occur in 2025, under the influence of panic sentiment, the probability on Polymarket for "Lighter will airdrop before December 31, 2025" has dropped from 94% to 64%. The highly-upvoted analyses from players betting "No" below lack reasonable analysis or insider information, mostly consisting of emotional bets or focusing on semantics:
- "It's confirmed that the airdrop will be in 2026"
- "I still can't understand why these fools didn't mention TGE at all, and the probability actually reached 94%. This was the worst AMA of my life, wasted 45 minutes listening to a bunch of nonsense, not a single useful piece of information."
- "TGE is not the same as an airdrop; they are two different things. There are many examples of this. Read the rules clearly first."
- "According to the settlement rules, locked tokens or non-tradable tokens do not qualify as conditions for a 'Yes' outcome. Even if the project releases an airdrop checker and shows your allocation, as long as the tokens cannot be freely traded on the market, the result is 'No'."
Of course, besides the unclear airdrop date, Lighter also faces concerns such as anti-sybil questioning and a valuation trap, with several dark clouds looming. Coinciding with the overall market cooling down at the end of the year, any movement from any project will attract extra attention from the community—Lighter's current动向 is可谓 "born at the right time".
The Strictest Anti-Sybil Measures of 2025
Lighter has caught the tailwind of two of the hottest narratives of 2025 (Pre-DEX and RWA), so investors quite看好 it. In early December, market whispers suggested that Lighter would conduct its TGE and airdrop within 2025, further boosting investor enthusiasm. Some users with high积分 even began "popping the champagne halfway through the game" on social media.
Lighter points leader提前发布获奖感言 (pre-releasing a victory speech)
But as the old saying goes, success comes from secrecy, failure from leakage. Many blamed the subsequent stringent sybil screening launched by Lighter on these boastful users (although this might not be the事实).
On December 23, Lighter announced in its official Discord the commencement of a massive sybil screening, removing积分 obtained by sybil addresses, wash trading, and volume manipulation. However, these deducted积分 (including portions already removed) would be redistributed to the community.
The community instantly in an uproar. After Lighter began its sybil screening, large numbers of studio accounts had their积分 deducted. Some bloggers claimed that Lighter's anti-sybil measures were extremely strict, with an estimated 70-90% of studio accounts being caught. Ordinary airdrop farmers were not spared either, with social media filled with "wails of grief".
Some even compared Lighter to the LayerZero of 2025. In 2024, LayerZero identified over 800,000 wallet addresses before its airdrop. Although the number of sybil addresses for Lighter might not be as high as LayerZero's, the severity might be comparable.
Such stringent anti-sybil actions undoubtedly put Lighter at odds with the community.
According to some users flagged as sybils, the reason given by Lighter was simply "abnormal trading," with no further explanation. The sybil rules were not transparent, meaning users didn't even know how they "died."
However, facing community质疑, Lighter's founder and CEO, Vladimir Novakovski, remained confident in this rather arbitrary sybil screening and stated that the anti-sybil algorithm would not be made public. His explanation was "to avoid targeted optimization," and he also mentioned an appeals mechanism was in place, but so far, the number of appeals was much lower than expected.
But some community members didn't believe Vladimir's excuses, suspecting that Lighter's harsh anti-sybil measures were to protect their own insider (rat)仓, and that even the off-market积分 price might have been secretly pumped by the Lighter team.
After all, since ancient times in the crypto world, the principle has been that the biggest airdrops are simple. The more complex the interaction requirements and the stricter the anti-sybil measures, the more likely something fishy is going on. Even peers in the same赛道 as Lighter, like Hyperliquid and Aster, were not this tedious and "stingy" during their airdrops.
The Lighter community currently resembles students checking their exam results after the gaokao (college entrance exam). Every day Lighter continues its sybil screening is another day of煎熬 (agony) for them.
Is the FDV Overvalued?
Amid the already depressed market environment and fueled by negative community sentiment, the market也开始思考 (began to ponder), is Lighter already overvalued?
On Polymarket, the probability for "Lighter's FDV will be greater than $1 billion on the first day of trading" has dropped from 90% to 72%, and the probability for "Lighter's FDV will be greater than $2 billion on the first day of trading" has also fallen from 87% to 68%. This indicates declining market confidence in Lighter's valuation.
Referring to the first-day market capitalizations of the other two major Pre-DEXs (Hyperliquid and Aster), Hyperliquid's FDV was approximately $3.6 billion at its opening on November 29, 2024, while Aster's opening FDV was around $10.8 billion on September 17, 2024. According to Binance Pre-Market data, Lighter's current pre-market FDV is approximately $3.3 billion, having previously peaked at $4.3 billion.
From this perspective, the valuation for Lighter on Polymarket seems reasonable, so why is market confidence still falling?
One reason is that the selling pressure from the airdrop cannot be ignored, especially after Lighter's widespread sybil screening has damaged community goodwill. Most users will likely sell immediately upon receiving the airdrop. According to the Lighter team, the airdrop ratio might be 25% of the total token supply, with no lock-up restrictions. Therefore, the selling pressure from the airdrop will undoubtedly pose significant resistance to any increase in Lighter's market cap.
The second reason is that for a period after the token launch, LIT will only be traded on its own platform and will not主动上线 (actively list on) other exchanges. The Lighter team has also stated that they have not paid listing fees to any trading platform. This means that for some time after launch, Lighter will not have access to the full liquidity of CEXs, thereby limiting the upside potential for the LIT token post-launch.
Nevertheless, some whales remain confident in Lighter. On Hyperliquid, the long-short forces for Lighter are still relatively balanced. Since the pre-market contracts went live, 10 whales with positions exceeding $1 million have entered the market, equally split between longs and shorts.
Andy, founder of The Rollup, also stated that although Lighter's open interest (OI) would likely drop by more than 20% and trading volume could decline by over 30% after the initial token volatility subsides, he would still choose to buy if LIT's fully diluted valuation (FDV) is around $2 billion.
