Empire Inside Lighter’s Plan to Overtake Hyperliquid | Vladimir Novakovski
Jan 20, 2026
In this engaging discussion, Vladimir Novakovski, Founder and CEO of Lighter, shares insights from his journey transitioning from traditional finance to crypto. He explains Lighter’s edge over Hyperliquid, emphasizing the advantages of being an Ethereum L2. Vladimir also dives into the significance of ZK technology, their partnership with Robinhood, and the potential for equity perps in the market. With an exciting vision of merging TradFi and DeFi, this conversation is packed with fascinating perspectives on the future of finance.
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Ship Apps Before Infrastructure
- Start with the application that customers actually want to use and iterate with real users from day one.
- Building infrastructure first without an active product risks slow adoption and weak bootstrapping.
Performance Determines DEX Adoption
- Traders prefer venues with competitive performance, so DEXs must match CEX speed and UX to win market share.
- Lighter aims to be faster and more competitive than Hyperliquid to capture traders moving between centralized and decentralized venues.
Why Ethereum L2 Matters
- Building on Ethereum L2 preserves security and access to the largest DeFi ecosystem, unlocking composability with existing protocols.
- Choosing an L1-like isolated chain sacrifices connectivity to where most TVL and institutional interest already live.