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- BLIT is the first exchange-traded product tracking Lighter’s LIT token.
- The ETP launched with roughly $4.74 million in assets and just over 1 million LIT in cold storage.
- Only price exposure is active at launch, despite “Staking” appearing in the product name.
Bitwise has launched the first exchange-traded product tracking Lighter’s LIT token, extending the competition between decentralized perpetual trading platforms into European investment products.
The Bitwise Lighter Staking ETP, or BLIT, began trading on Deutsche Börse Xetra on September 23 with a 0.85% annual expense ratio. It is physically backed by LIT held in cold storage and tracks the Kaiko Lighter Reference Rate. Bitwise launched a comparable Hyperliquid staking ETP in April, meaning European brokerage investors can now gain exposure to tokens tied to two competing onchain derivatives platforms.
Bitwise Is Packaging the Lighter-Hyperliquid Competition
Bitwise is not entering the onchain derivatives trade for the first time.
Its Bitwise Hyperliquid Staking ETP, ticker BHYP, launched on Xetra in April with the same 0.85% annual expense ratio. That product tracks HYPE and targets a 1% net staking reward before the management fee. BLIT extends the strategy to Lighter, a competing perpetual futures platform.
Lighter already has substantial trading activity behind it. DeFiLlama showed roughly $632 million of perpetual open interest on September 23 and about $1.8 trillion in cumulative perpetual volume. A September 18 exchange snapshot ranked Lighter third among decentralized exchanges tracked by the platform, with nearly $1.93 billion in daily perpetual volume at the time.
Hyperliquid remains the larger benchmark. Data captured on September 9 showed it accounting for about 36.5% of tracked onchain perpetual volume, compared with 8.1% for Lighter.
BLIT therefore gives investors exposure to a challenger rather than the current market leader.
Bitwise itself makes that connection explicit. The asset manager said the new product extends the approach it began with Hyperliquid as onchain platforms attract more institutional attention.
BLIT Started With $4.74 Million, Not Just a Ticker
Bitwise reported $4.74 million in BLIT assets under management on September 23, providing an immediate baseline for measuring whether investor demand develops after launch.
The product starts with:
- AUM: $4.74 million
- LIT held in cold storage: approximately 1.012 million
- Units outstanding: 202,594
- LIT per unit: approximately 4.998
- Annual expense ratio: 0.85%
- Exposure: 1:1 to LIT, with no leverage
- Custodian: BitGo Europe
- Underlying asset lending: None
At a 0.85% expense ratio, a hypothetical €10,000 investment carries €85 in annual product fees, excluding brokerage and trading costs.
BLIT removes the need for investors to manage wallets, private keys and direct token custody. It does not remove LIT’s market risk: the ETP remains economically tied to movements in the underlying token.
The “Staking” Product Does Not Stake Yet
BLIT’s name requires one qualification.
Bitwise says the product currently performs no staking, meaning investors receive LIT price exposure but no staking income. The 0.85% product fee still applies.
Bitwise intends to activate staking once BLIT reaches a sufficient level of assets for efficient operations. It has not disclosed that AUM threshold or established when staking will begin.
If activated, staking rewards would accrue daily and increase the cryptocurrency entitlement represented by each ETP unit.
Until then, BLIT is simpler economically than its name suggests: LIT exposure minus product costs.
That also creates a measurable milestone. With approximately $4.74 million already in the product, future AUM disclosures will show how much additional capital BLIT needs before Bitwise decides staking is economically viable.
Lighter Is Expanding the Market Behind LIT
The investment case Bitwise is presenting extends beyond crypto perpetuals.
Lighter has added derivatives referencing traditional assets including Apple, Amazon and Tesla. These products provide price exposure through perpetual futures rather than ownership of the underlying shares. Bitwise says trading is available through most of the week as Lighter moves toward continuous access.
Independent data shows activity is already developing in some of these markets.
Lighter’s Apple perpetual had generated about $52.8 million in 30-day volume by September 23, while the QQQ perpetual recorded roughly $169.8 million over the same period. The platform’s Anthropic market, which references the private company, had generated another $64.2 million.
Those figures remain small beside Lighter’s core crypto trading business, but they show that the expansion into traditional and private-market references is producing actual trading activity rather than remaining only a product roadmap.
Bradley Duke, Bitwise’s head of Europe, framed BLIT around precisely this convergence, saying Lighter is bringing assets such as U.S. stocks onto blockchain infrastructure alongside crypto. Lighter founder Vladimir Novakovski, meanwhile, described the platform’s objective as bringing institutional-grade perpetual trading fully onchain using zero-knowledge proofs for verifiable execution.
For BLIT investors, however, the connection is indirect. Buying the ETP does not provide access to Lighter’s trading platform or ownership of the assets referenced by its perpetuals. It provides exposure to LIT, whose value may respond differently from protocol trading activity.
That separation gives the launch two benchmarks.
Lighter’s volume and open interest will show whether traders continue using the protocol. BLIT’s assets under management, starting from approximately $4.74 million, will show whether a separate group of investors wants exposure to the token through conventional securities accounts.
The first market is already substantial. The second started trading today.
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