Europe Can Now Buy Lighter’s LIT Through a Brokerage Account — Inside Bitwise’s First Staking ETP for the Hyperliquid Rival

HEADLINE: Europe Can Now Buy Lighter’s LIT Through a Brokerage Account — Inside Bitwise’s First Staking ETP for the Hyperliquid Rival SEO_KEYWORDS: Bitwise LIT ETP, Lighter LIT staking, BLIT Xetra TAGS: Mining & Staking, ETF, Layer 2, Institutional Adoption —CONTENT—

Bitwise has launched the first exchange-traded product tracking Lighter’s LIT token, listing the Bitwise Lighter Staking ETP under the ticker BLIT on Deutsche Börse Xetra on September 23 — giving European investors regulated exposure to one of Hyperliquid’s fastest-growing rivals without touching a crypto wallet.

By Michael Nguyen | September 23, 2026

The Hook: A Perp DEX Token Comes to Brokerage Accounts

Lighter is an Ethereum layer 2 decentralized exchange focused on perpetual futures — contracts that let traders bet on price moves without owning the underlying asset. Think of it as a high-speed trading venue that runs beside Ethereum, settles disputes with math instead of middlemen, and charges retail traders no fees. Its native token, LIT, has mostly been accessible through crypto exchanges. Now, according to Bitwise, European investors can buy exposure to it through a regular brokerage account via the BLIT ETP, which tracks the Kaiko Lighter Reference Rate and carries an annual total expense ratio of 0.85 percent, issued by Bitwise Europe GmbH in Germany.

The Evidence: What BLIT Actually Holds

BLIT is physically backed — it holds the actual cryptocurrency in cold storage rather than synthetic price exposure. Bitwise data showed the product at launch:

• 202,594 ETP units outstanding as of September 23, backed by 1.01 million LIT.
• Assets under management of roughly 4.74 million USD at launch.
• Each ETP unit represents just under 5 LIT.

That is small change compared with LIT’s overall market. CoinGecko placed LIT’s market capitalization at roughly 1.27 billion USD on the same day, with trading volume near 84.7 million USD. The launch size means BLIT’s immediate effect on LIT supply is limited — but physically backed ETPs must buy more of the underlying token as they grow, which can become a demand channel over time.

The Catch: It’s a “Staking” ETP That Isn’t Staking Yet

Despite the name, the Bitwise Lighter Staking ETP is not currently staking its LIT. Bitwise said staking begins only after BLIT reaches sufficient assets under management to make staking operations efficient — and the company has not disclosed the required level or a start date. Until then, investors pay the 0.85 percent annual fee for price exposure only. If staking begins, rewards are expected to accrue daily and be reflected in the amount of cryptocurrency each unit represents.

Staking itself is a familiar concept: you lock up tokens and earn rewards, like earning interest on a deposit. Within the Lighter ecosystem, staked LIT grants access to the Lighter Liquidity Pool — each staked LIT allows users to deposit up to 10 USDC into the pool, and unstaking carries a three-day lockup. Lighter also directs protocol revenue between ecosystem growth and token buybacks depending on market conditions; LIT climbed around 16 percent when treasury buybacks began in January, according to prior crypto.news reporting.

Market Implications: Bitwise Bets on the Perp DEX Race

BLIT follows a pattern. Bitwise launched a Hyperliquid Staking ETP in Europe in April, then a U.S. Hyperliquid ETF in May — the U.S. product recorded 16 consecutive days of inflows before its first daily outflow in June. Lighter and Hyperliquid are direct competitors in decentralized perpetual futures: toward the end of 2025, Lighter recorded close to 198 billion USD in 30-day perpetuals volume versus roughly 166 billion USD for Hyperliquid. During a major market selloff in February, Lighter processed about 7.5 billion USD in perp volume in 24 hours — nearly 9.5 percent of sector activity.

Lighter has also expanded beyond crypto, offering perpetual contracts tied to Apple, Amazon and Tesla shares — price exposure without owning the stocks. Bitwise Managing Director Bradley Duke said the new ETP extends the firm’s European staking products to a platform bringing traditional assets onto blockchain infrastructure. As for price, LIT traded around 5 USD on September 23, up close to 9 percent in 24 hours per CoinGecko — though the token had already risen from about 4.74 USD on September 21 before the ETP launched, making it hard to credit Bitwise alone. The broader market backdrop was flat, with Bitcoin near 85,636 USD and Solana around 117 USD at the time of writing.

The Verdict: A Small Product With a Big Signal

Supply is the counterweight: only 25 percent of LIT’s total supply was distributed at launch via airdrop, with 26 percent to the team and 24 percent to investors under a one-year lockup plus three years of linear vesting. Large future unlocks could outweigh ETP demand. Still, for regular investors, BLIT is another step in the merging of DeFi trading platforms and traditional finance — regulated wrappers around tokens that, until recently, required a wallet and a crash course in layer 2 networks. Whether staking activates — and whether inflows follow — is what to watch next.

The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.