Bitwise announced on September 23, 2026 the launch of the Bitwise Lighter Staking ETP, ticker BLIT, on Deutsche Börse Xetra, giving European investors exchange-traded exposure to LIT, the native token of Lighter, a decentralized perpetual futures platform.
The product, issued by Bitwise Europe GmbH under ISIN DE000A4AV9T5, tracks the Kaiko Lighter Reference Rate Index and carries a 0.85% total expense ratio. BLIT is fully collateralized, with underlying LIT tokens held in cold storage, and can be bought and sold through an ordinary brokerage account without a crypto wallet.
Lighter Founder and CEO Vladimir Novakovski said Lighter was built to bring institutional-grade perpetuals trading fully onchain, using zero-knowledge proofs to guarantee fair, verifiable execution without sacrificing speed, adding that the company is excited to bring LIT to European investors who lack a direct route into onchain markets.
Bitwise posted the listing on its official X account within hours of the Frankfurt announcement, positioning BLIT as its latest step in bringing onchain trading venues to European brokerage accounts:
What “Staking” in the Product Name Means Right Now
Despite the product’s name, no staking income is currently flowing through BLIT. Bitwise states on its own product page that the LIT holdings behind the ETP are not presently being staked, meaning the staking component is built into the product’s structure but not yet activated, so investors should treat any advertised yield as a future possibility rather than a current return, relevant to evaluating any product covered in a guide to the best crypto ETF funds.
| Bitwise Lighter Staking ETP | Details |
| Ticker | BLIT |
| ISIN | DE000A4AV9T5 |
| Issuer | Bitwise Europe GmbH |
| Listing venue | Deutsche Börse Xetra |
| Total expense ratio | 0.85% |
| Staking status at launch | Not yet active |
Table 1. Key details of Bitwise’s Lighter Staking ETP.
Once activated, any staking rewards would accrue daily and be reflected in each ETP unit’s cryptocurrency entitlement, though no activation timeline has been disclosed.
What Lighter Trades
Lighter operates as a decentralized perpetual futures platform built on Ethereum as a Layer 2, using zero-knowledge proofs to verify order matching and liquidations while processing transactions off the main chain before submitting proofs back to Ethereum.
Lighter has expanded beyond crypto perpetuals to list major global stocks, including Apple, Amazon, and Tesla, as continuously tradable perpetual futures, letting users gain price exposure without owning underlying shares, a leveraged structure explained further in crypto leverage trading: how it works and why it’s risky. Lighter charges retail traders no direct trading fees, earning revenue instead through market making, liquidations, and its own treasury.
This Isn’t Bitwise’s First Perp-DEX ETP
BLIT is the second perp-DEX token Bitwise has wrapped into a European ETP in under six months. In April 2026, Bitwise listed the Bitwise Hyperliquid Staking ETP on the same exchange, tracking Hyperliquid, the dominant onchain perpetuals venue, at an identical 0.85% fee, with rival venue Aster also having pushed to the top of perpetual-futures volume tables at points during 2026.
Lighter’s backers include Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, and a16z, with the protocol raising $68 million in November 2025 at a roughly $1.5 billion valuation.
Its integration with Robinhood, announced in mid-2026, points toward broader ambitions: functioning as infrastructure behind brokers and professional desks rather than competing directly for retail order flow.
How Lighter’s Scale Compares to Its Larger Rival
Lighter has become one of the more active platforms in decentralized perpetual futures. During a major crypto selloff in February, the exchange processed roughly $7.5 billion in volume over 24 hours, close to 9.5% of sector activity.
DeFiLlama data showed Lighter’s TVL at approximately $644 million on Ethereum and $99 million on Robinhood Chain, placing its aggregate TVL above $743 million across all chains, a base underpinning the protocol’s utility claims for LIT holders once staking activates.
LIT launched with 25% of its total supply distributed through a community airdrop, with 50% allocated to the ecosystem, 26% to the team, and 24% to investors, with team and investor allocations placed under a one-year lockup followed by three years of linear vesting.
What Comes Next for BLIT and Staking Activation
Future adoption will depend on Lighter’s continued growth, trading activity, and whether Bitwise activates the staking mechanism the product is named for. Investors should also watch whether Lighter’s AUM growth and TVL base support the yield claims once staking does turn on, since neither company has disclosed an activation timeline.
What this means for you: Bitwise’s Lighter Staking ETP gives investors a regulated, exchange-listed way to gain exposure to a decentralized derivatives protocol without directly managing wallets or interacting with DeFi infrastructure. However, the staking component that gives the product its name is not yet generating returns, and investors remain exposed to the risks of the underlying protocol and market regardless of when that feature activates.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Crypto ETPs, digital assets, staking products, and decentralized finance protocols involve market, liquidity, regulatory, technology, and operational risks. Availability may vary by jurisdiction.
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