--- title: "Lighter vs Hyperliquid: Fees, Depth and Size, Measured" description: "Lighter vs Hyperliquid on measured data: 97 shared markets, all-in cost by order size, open interest and volume in the same units, funding and liquidity." canonical_url: "https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-vs-hyperliquid" markdown_url: "https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-vs-hyperliquid.md" route: "/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-vs-hyperliquid" robots: "index, follow, max-image-preview:large" generated_from: "prerendered_html" --- # Lighter vs Hyperliquid, Measured Lighter and Hyperliquid compared on measured numbers: market overlap, fees after slippage, open interest and volume in matching units, funding and liquidity. By [0xArchive Team](https://0xarchive.io/authors/0xarchive-team) November 14, 2026 9 min read - [Lighter](https://0xarchive.io/resources?topic=lighter) - [Hyperliquid](https://0xarchive.io/resources?topic=hyperliquid) ## Key findings 1. [Step 2: size, in the same units](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-vs-hyperliquid#article-section-step-2-size-in-the-same-units) 12x Hyperliquid's open interest against Lighter's across the 10 largest shared markets. 2. [Fees, and what they cost with slippage](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-vs-hyperliquid#article-section-fees-and-what-they-cost-with-slippage) 0.94 bps All-in cost of a $1M BTC order on Lighter Standard, against 5.03 bps on Hyperliquid's base tier. 3. [Step 1: which markets are on both](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-vs-hyperliquid#article-section-step-1-which-markets-are-on-both) 97 Perps listed on both venues. 4. [Step 3: funding](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-vs-hyperliquid#article-section-step-3-funding) 97.5% Hours BTC funding had the same sign on both venues. Hyperliquid and Lighter are onchain crypto exchanges for perpetual futures. They list many of the same markets, charge differently, and run their order books on different designs. Most comparisons list features. This one measures them: market overlap, fees after slippage, open interest and volume in matching units, funding, liquidity, and the data each venue gives you. Every number is from 13 November 2026, with time series covering the 30 days before. ## Short answer - **Hyperliquid is larger.** Across the 10 shared markets with the most Hyperliquid volume, Hyperliquid had $3.50 billion of open interest a side against Lighter's $0.30 billion, and $8.06 billion of 24-hour volume against $2.17 billion. - **Lighter is cheaper on BTC.** Lighter's Standard account pays no trading fee. A $1 million BTC market order cost 0.94 bps all-in on Lighter Standard and 5.03 bps on Hyperliquid's base tier. - **Hyperliquid is cheaper for size outside BTC.** A $5 million HYPE order cost 28.05 bps all-in on Hyperliquid and 41.46 bps on Lighter Standard. - **Funding usually has the same sign.** On BTC, hourly funding had the same sign on both venues in 97.5% of hours. On SOL it was 82.4%. - **Liquidity is built differently.** Three accounts made half of Lighter's BTC maker volume. On Hyperliquid it took 25 wallets. ## What you need - Python 3 with `requests` . Steps 1 and 2 need no key. Step 3 uses a 0xArchive API key in `OXARCHIVE_API_KEY` ; the Free plan covers it. See [pricing](https://0xarchive.io/pricing) . ## Step 1: which markets are on both Each venue publishes its market list. Match the names, and map Hyperliquid's `kPEPE` -style 1,000-token contracts to Lighter's `1000PEPE`: ``` import os, requests from datetime import datetime, timezone HL = "https://api.hyperliquid.xyz/info" LT = "https://mainnet.zklighter.elliot.ai/api/v1" meta, ctxs = requests.post(HL, json={"type": "metaAndAssetCtxs"}, timeout=30).json() hl = {m["name"]: c for m, c in zip(meta["universe"], ctxs) if not m.get("isDelisted")} books = requests.get(f"{LT}/orderBookDetails", timeout=30).json()["order_book_details"] lt = {b["symbol"]: b for b in books if b.get("market_type") == "perp" and b.get("status") == "active"} alias = {"kPEPE": "1000PEPE", "kBONK": "1000BONK", "kSHIB": "1000SHIB", "kFLOKI": "1000FLOKI"} both = [s for s in hl if s in lt] + [k for k, v in alias.items() if k in hl and v in lt] print("Hyperliquid perps", len(hl), "| Lighter perps", len(lt), "| on both", len(both)) ``` ``` Hyperliquid perps 179 | Lighter perps 209 | on both 97 ``` Hyperliquid had 179 active core perps and Lighter 209. 97 trade on both. Lighter also lists stocks, FX pairs and commodities as regular markets: of the 112 Lighter markets with no matching Hyperliquid core perp, 69 also trade on Hyperliquid as HIP-3 markets deployed by outside teams, such as xyz:NVDA. Some match under different names: Lighter's XAU is gold, which Hyperliquid lists as xyz:GOLD. ## Step 2: size, in the same units The venues count open interest differently. Hyperliquid reports contracts counting both sides. Lighter reports contracts for one side, plus a dollar figure counting both sides. Put both on one side in dollars before comparing. This values Hyperliquid at its mark price and Lighter at its last trade price: ``` def hl_side(s): c = hl[s] return float(c["openInterest"]) / 2 * float(c["markPx"]), float(c["dayNtlVlm"]) def lt_side(s): b = lt[alias.get(s, s)] return float(b["open_interest"]) * float(b["last_trade_price"]), float(b["daily_quote_token_volume"]) rows = sorted(((s, *hl_side(s), *lt_side(s)) for s in both), key=lambda r: -r[2])[:10] print("market OI one side: HL / Lighter 24h volume: HL / Lighter") for s, hoi, hv, loi, lv in rows: print(f"{s:6} ${hoi/1e6:8.1f}M / ${loi/1e6:7.1f}M ${hv/1e6:8.1f}M / ${lv/1e6:7.1f}M") print("top 10 total OI $%.2fB / $%.2fB volume $%.2fB / $%.2fB" % tuple( sum(r[i] for r in rows) / 1e9 for i in (1, 3, 2, 4))) ``` ``` market OI one side: HL / Lighter 24h volume: HL / Lighter BTC $ 1377.2M / $ 130.4M $ 5094.6M / $ 1366.0M ETH $ 711.5M / $ 76.5M $ 1338.8M / $ 569.3M HYPE $ 799.1M / $ 21.5M $ 556.3M / $ 81.5M ZEC $ 196.7M / $ 10.3M $ 505.0M / $ 57.9M SOL $ 161.3M / $ 9.6M $ 288.8M / $ 60.1M XRP $ 46.2M / $ 1.6M $ 70.8M / $ 6.8M XMR $ 58.4M / $ 3.5M $ 66.9M / $ 6.6M NEAR $ 69.5M / $ 5.1M $ 64.5M / $ 6.0M PUMP $ 26.5M / $ 2.4M $ 37.9M / $ 1.3M LIT $ 55.1M / $ 35.3M $ 35.1M / $ 17.5M top 10 total OI $3.50B / $0.30B volume $8.06B / $2.17B BTC: 716 hours, same sign 97.5% | mean funding 9.8% a year on Hyperliquid, 10.2% on Lighter ``` Hyperliquid had about 12 times Lighter's open interest across these 10 markets and about 3.7 times its 24-hour volume. Over 30 days the volume ratio was 3.3 to 1: $153.9 billion against $47.2 billion. LIT had the narrowest gap: Lighter's own token had $35.3 million open on Lighter against $55.1 million on Hyperliquid. Multiplying Hyperliquid's contracts by price without halving doubles its number. The [open interest guide](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/hyperliquid-open-interest) shows the check. ## Fees, and what they cost with slippage | Row label | Hyperliquid | Lighter | | --- | --- | --- | | Base taker / maker | 0.045% / 0.015% | Standard: 0 / 0. Premium: 0.028% / 0.004%. | | Best tier | 0.024% / 0% above $7 billion 14-day volume, maker rebates to −0.003% | Premium with 500,000 LIT staked: 0.0196% / 0.0028% | | Discounts | HYPE staking, 5% to 40% | LIT staking, up to 30% | | Catch | None at base | Standard taker orders wait 300 ms. Premium waits 140 ms. | | Stock perps | HIP-3 growth mode cuts fees 90%: 0.009% taker on xyz:NVDA | Same schedule as crypto | Sources: [Hyperliquid fees](https://hyperliquid.gitbook.io/hyperliquid-docs/trading/fees) and [Lighter trading fees](https://docs.lighter.xyz/trading/trading-fees). A fee is only part of the cost. Adding the median slippage we measured hourly over seven days: | Market order | Hyperliquid, base tier | Lighter Standard | Lighter Premium, no LIT | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | BTC $1M | 5.03 bps | 0.94 bps | 3.74 bps | | BTC $5M | 6.20 bps | 3.43 bps | 6.23 bps | | HYPE $1M | 13.02 bps | 8.34 bps | 11.14 bps | | HYPE $5M | 28.05 bps | 41.46 bps | 44.26 bps | | NVDA $5M | Book never ran out | Ran out in 311 of 336 samples | Same | Lighter Standard wins on BTC at every size we tested. Hyperliquid wins at $5 million on HYPE and on stock perps, where its book is deeper. The table leaves out Lighter's 300 ms wait, which can move the fill either way in a fast market. The method is in the [slippage guide](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/hyperliquid-slippage). ## Step 3: funding Both venues pay funding every hour, cap it at 0.5% an hour, and add a fixed interest component of 0.01% per 8 hours. Hyperliquid samples its premium every 5 seconds. Lighter samples once a minute at a random second and scales the premium down for stock and pre-IPO markets. Compare Hyperliquid's settled hourly rates with 0xArchive's hourly Lighter rates over 30 days: ``` ms = lambda *d: int(datetime(*d, tzinfo=timezone.utc).timestamp() * 1000) T0, T1 = ms(2026, 10, 14), ms(2026, 11, 13) # the 30 days to 13 November 2026 H = {"X-API-Key": os.environ["OXARCHIVE_API_KEY"]} B = "https://api.0xarchive.io/v1" for sym in ["BTC", "SOL", "HYPE"]: hlf = requests.post(HL, json={"type": "fundingHistory", "coin": sym, "startTime": T0, "endTime": T1}, timeout=60).json() hlf += requests.post(HL, json={"type": "fundingHistory", "coin": sym, "startTime": hlf[-1]["time"] + 1, "endTime": T1}, timeout=60).json() h = {x["time"] // 3_600_000: float(x["fundingRate"]) for x in hlf} lf = requests.get(f"{B}/lighter/funding/{sym}", headers=H, timeout=60, params={ "start": T0, "end": T1, "interval": "1h", "limit": 1000}).json()["data"] l = {int(datetime.fromisoformat(x["timestamp"].replace("Z", "+00:00")).timestamp()) // 3600: float(x["funding_rate"]) for x in lf} hours = [k for k in h if k in l and h[k] and l[k]] agree = sum((h[k] > 0) == (l[k] > 0) for k in hours) yr = lambda d: 100 * 24 * 365 * sum(d[k] for k in hours) / len(hours) print(f"{sym}: {len(hours)} hours, same sign {100*agree/len(hours):.1f}% | " f"mean funding {yr(h):.1f}% a year on Hyperliquid, {yr(l):.1f}% on Lighter") ``` ``` SOL: 710 hours, same sign 82.4% | mean funding 5.7% a year on Hyperliquid, 7.8% on Lighter HYPE: 713 hours, same sign 88.9% | mean funding 12.3% a year on Hyperliquid, 8.9% on Lighter ``` BTC funding pointed the same way on both venues in 97.5% of the 716 hours where both rates were nonzero, mostly because both sat at their default interest rate. SOL agreed in 82.4% of hours, and HYPE funding averaged 12.3% a year on Hyperliquid against 8.9% on Lighter. Across the 10 largest shared markets, agreement was 87.1%. Excluding hours when both venues sat at their default, it fell to 74.5%. XMR showed the widest gap: 52.4% a year on Hyperliquid against 21.2% on Lighter. For trading those gaps, see [funding rates on Hyperliquid and Lighter](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/funding-rate-arbitrage). ## Liquidity and spreads Hyperliquid's median spread over seven days of hourly samples was tighter on BTC (0.13 bps against 0.42) and HYPE (0.14 against 1.28). On a single snapshot Lighter was tighter on some smaller markets, such as NEAR and LIT. The bigger difference is who provides the liquidity. On 12 November, the top maker account on Lighter BTC had 36.0% of maker volume, and three accounts made half. On Hyperliquid BTC the top wallet had 10.4% and it took 25 to reach half. See [who makes markets on Hyperliquid](https://0xarchive.io/resources/research/hyperliquid-market-makers). ## Data each venue gives you | Row label | Hyperliquid | Lighter | | --- | --- | --- | | Accounts | Wallet addresses | Numeric account indexes | | Order-level book | L4: every order with its wallet | L3: every order with its account index | | Native book | 20 levels a side, current only | Up to 250 orders a side, current only | | Native rate limit | 1,200 weight a minute per IP | 60 requests a minute on Standard | | Native funding history | From 12 May 2023, 500 rows per call | From 17 January 2025, 750 rows per call; rate unsigned, with a separate direction field | | 0xArchive history from | Trades and 20-level books April 2023; funding and open interest May 2023; full-depth books April 2026 | Trades January 2025; funding and open interest August 2025; books January 2026 | Both venues' native funding history reaches further back than ours: Hyperliquid's by eight days and Lighter's by seven months. Neither API serves past order books, past open interest or market-wide fills; Lighter publishes hourly open interest files separately. That is what the archive adds, with one API shape for both venues. See [Hyperliquid's native API vs 0xArchive](https://0xarchive.io/resources/comparisons/native-hyperliquid-api-vs-0xarchive) and [Lighter's native API vs 0xArchive](https://0xarchive.io/resources/comparisons/lighter-native-api-vs-0xarchive). ## Which to use - **Small to mid-size BTC and ETH orders, cost first:** Lighter Standard, if a 300 ms wait does not hurt your strategy. - **Large HYPE or stock perp orders:** Hyperliquid, which had the deeper book at the sizes we measured. - **Market making:** Hyperliquid pays maker rebates from 0.5% of maker volume. Lighter Premium charges makers 0.004% before staking. - **Research across both:** convert to the same units and align timestamps before comparing. One API shape for both venues makes that easier. ## What to know before you compare - **Same ticker, different contract.** Lighter NVDA and xyz:NVDA are separate markets with separate oracles. - **Lighter's funding rate has no sign.** Its native API returns a positive rate and a `direction` field. 0xArchive returns it signed. - **Floor hours inflate agreement.** Exclude hours where both venues sit at their default rate before comparing funding. - **Fees are per account.** Use your own tier and account type. ## FAQ ### Is Lighter cheaper than Hyperliquid? For BTC market orders, yes: Lighter Standard has no trading fee and cost 0.94 bps all-in for $1 million against 5.03 bps on Hyperliquid's base tier. For $5 million of HYPE, Hyperliquid was cheaper. ### Which is bigger, Lighter or Hyperliquid? Hyperliquid. Across the 10 largest shared markets it had about 12 times Lighter's open interest and 3.3 times its 30-day volume. ### Do Lighter and Hyperliquid list the same markets? 97 perps are on both. Lighter lists stocks and FX as regular markets; Hyperliquid lists stocks through HIP-3 deployers. ### Do funding rates match between Lighter and Hyperliquid? Mostly in direction: 97.5% of hours on BTC, 87.1% across the 10 largest shared markets. The size often differs. ## Next steps - Lighter's API: [Lighter API guide](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-api) . - Lighter history: [Lighter historical market data](https://0xarchive.io/resources/market-data-guides/lighter-historical-market-data) . - Providers for both venues: [Hyperliquid and Lighter data providers](https://0xarchive.io/resources/comparisons/hyperliquid-lighter-data-providers) . - Start with a [free API key](https://0xarchive.io/pricing) .