Is Lighter Ethereum's L2 Perp DEX? | Founder Vlad Novakovski

Bankless

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Tech News, News, Technology

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A $19B liquidation wave hit crypto 10 days after Lighter’s public mainnet—so we asked founder/CEO Vladimir Novakovski why they built a ZK L2 Perp DEX on Ethereum, how the escape hatch actually protects users, and what really happened under extreme stress. We dig into ADL vs. LLP, trader-first design, and why verifiability (not vibes) should govern order matching and liquidations. Vlad shares throughput targets, why Lighter chose custom ZK circuits over a generalized ZKVM, and what’s next: Spot, universal cross-margin, and a ZKVM sidecar for a broader platform play. We close with lessons from the cascade, realistic tradeoffs of being an L2, and how L2Beat “stage upgrades” fit into the roadmap. --- 📣IMMUNEFI | CRYPTO SECURITY OS https://bankless.cc/Immunefi --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR L2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌳KGEN | REQUEST A DEMO https://bankless.cc/KGEN-podcast 💠BIT DIGITAL ($BTBT) | ETH TREASURY https://bankless.cc/bit-digital We’re being compensated by Bit Digital (NASDAQ BTBT) for this segment promoting their company and BTBT. The compensation is paid in cash as a one time payment. You can find additional information about Bit Digital and BTBT on their Investor page at https://bit-digital.com/investors --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 3:04 Guest Intro & ZK L2 “Why” 4:58 L2 Security & Verifiability 11:35 Verifiable Matching & Liquidations 14:02 Mainnet Launch & Liquidation Stress Test 18:16 Outage: Timeline & Make-Good 18:58 Scorecard: Lighter vs Hyperliquid vs Binance 22:20 ADL 101: Why Automated Deleveraging Exists 32:32 “Customer-First” Design Stance 38:32 Takeaways: Transparency, Proofs, Details 41:48 Causes Considered & Vlad’s Market Lens 49:31 Why a Perp DEX: Product & Fit 57:42 L1 vs L2: Tradeoffs, Sovereignty, Incentives 1:06:45 Roadmap: Spot, ZKVM Sidecar, Cross-Margin, New Markets 1:11:21 Points, Token Timing & Transparency 1:15:31 Closing Thoughts --- RESOURCES Vladimir Novakovski https://x.com/vnovakovski Lighter https://x.com/lighter_xyz --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to bank lists, where today we explore the frontier of Perp, Dexas. We're here to help you become
0:07.7	more bankless. You got Ryan and David on the podcast today. There's been a huge breakout this cycle.
0:12.8	One of the themes has been decentralized perps exchanges, led primarily by a application and a blockchain
0:20.1	called Hyperliquid, but now some competition
0:22.5	has entered the ring, and one in particular is moving up the charts in terms of
0:27.6	open interest for perps and volume. It's caught R.I. It's called lighter. It's now the second
0:33.1	largest perps exchange. They're only two weeks in to Mainnet, so it's quite a feat. It's getting a
0:38.4	lot of traction. The difference here is that lighter is built on Ethereum. So the question is,
0:44.8	is this Ethereum's hyperliquid? In this conversation, I think you'll find this is not just a
0:50.2	battle of purpose exchanges, is certainly that, but it's also a battle for Ethereum's vision of
0:55.3	the world, which is L2s backed by Ethereum grade security versus maybe some other visions of the
1:01.9	world, a multi-chain vision of the world where every single app has its own new fresh layer
1:08.0	one. A few things we discuss in this episode, the benefits of an L2. Can L2s
1:14.2	really scale? Also, the massive flash crash on October 11th and what were the causes? Vlad also gives
1:21.5	letter grades to all of the major perps exchanges in terms of how they operated. We also discussed
1:26.5	the lighter roadmap and their upcoming token, including how to earn the
1:30.4	airdrop and the future of lighter and their plans to become a platform chain.
1:35.5	I really enjoy talking to Vlad and just getting his perspective as like why build a layer
1:40.4	two perp decks.
1:41.7	And we didn't really specifically ask flat this question,
1:44.6	but I don't think he's doing it because he believes in Ethereum
1:48.1	or it like wants to do the layer 2 model.
	...

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