Hyperliquid has already proven itself as the top perp DEX on the market. But if you're looking for a native alternative that's built differently, Lighter is worth watching closely. It's still much smaller and less liquid than Hyperliquid. DeFiLlama shows Hyperliquid doing about 13.8 billion in perp volume over 24 hours, with 9.8 billion in open interest. Meanwhile, Lighter sits at around 2.3 billion in volume and 817 million in open interest. So this isn't a "Lighter has caught up" take. Not even close. What I like is that it already has enough liquidity to be taken seriously, while the token remains significantly smaller in market cap. That creates an interesting asymmetry if the platform continues to grow. The architecture is also fundamentally different. It's a ZK-rollup on Ethereum, using zero-knowledge proofs for order matching and liquidations. And retail users get fee-free trading. That's a real edge in user experience. The main risk? Token supply. Only 25% of LIT is currently circulating. Team and investor unlocks don't start until around December 30, 2026, and then they unlock linearly over 3 years. So Lighter has time to grow into its valuation, but the token will face real dilution down the line. If perp DEXs keep expanding, I wouldn't sleep on the ZK-native version built on Ethereum.