The Edge Podcast Lighter's Founder on Ethereum's Fastest DEX: LIT, Robinhood, and The TradFi-DeFi Bridge
Vlad Novakovski is the Founder and CEO of Lighter, a high-performance ZK-based perps and spot exchange, built on Ethereum.
A year ago, Lighter hadn't even launched. Today it's processing billions in daily volume, handling 500 million orders at a total cost of around $50K. Vlad's background spans STEM Olympiads, Harvard at 18, Citadel trading, and being an early advisor to Robinhood. Now he's building the infrastructure layer for when TradFi and DeFi merge.
Vlad breaks down how Lighter achieves centralized exchange performance on Ethereum, what Robinhood's $68M investment means for tokenized equities, and the post-TGE reality for LIT: token down, volumes pulled back, but fundamentals unchanged.
In this episode, we cover:
+ Scaling Ethereum's top perps DEX
+ Robinhood's $68M bet and tokenized equities
+ LIT token utility and value capture
+ Roadmap: options, prediction markets, fixed income
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💎 THIS EPISODE'S PARTNERS
🔒 KPK | Best risk-adjusted yield through automated vaults
🏙 MAINSTREET | Bringing proven TradFi yield strategies to DeFi markets
🌅 NEUTRL | The next generation of crypto-native yield
🛡️ ACCOUNTABLE | Real-time financial verification
🕛 NOON | The highest and safest stablecoin yield, built for the long term
⚔️ KATANA | Deep liquidity & real yield
🏦 MANTLE | MNT is now live on Solana
🐡 PUFFER INSTITUTIONAL | ETH staking solutions for scale
⚙️ GEARBOX PROTOCOL | Onchain lending reimagined
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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
2:19 - Vlad’s background
6:47 - What is Lighter? Five goals, one platform
10:36 - How ZK proofs enable high-performance trading on Ethereum
14:41 - Processing 500 million orders a day
16:33 - Why Lighter was at Bitmine's annual shareholder meeting
18:32 - Robinhood's $68M investment and the tokenized equities opportunity
22:16 - The competitive landscape: Lighter vs. Hyperliquid and CEXs
26:33 - How the LLP works and how it differs from other DEX LPs
29:51 - The LIT token launch: What went well
31:45 - Post-TGE reality and the marathon ahead
33:48 - LIT token utility: Staking, fees, and LLP access
37:31 - Revenue and buybacks, what drives LIT value
39:43 - The new Lighter mobile app
41:03 - DeFi is not antithetical to regulators
43:00 - What’s next? Tokenized stocks, options, prediction markets
45:12 - Closing
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🔗 GUEST LINKS
► Lighter website: https://lighter.xyz/
► Lighter on X: https://x.com/lighter_xyz
► Vlad Novakovski on X: https://x.com/vnovakovski
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast.