Lighter rallies 13% as retail buys – Why are whales still selling LIT?

Lighter [LIT]  decentralized exchange is challenging established DEXs like Hyperliquid in terms of the volume traded in perpetual futures. Its activity has kept pace with the broader market rebound, with LIT rallying more than 13% in 24 hours at press time.

Despite mixed sentiment among holders, the token gained during the weekend’s recovery. In a wider context, its price remained relatively stagnant, but trading activity saw a notable surge.

Perps volume pushes daily price gains

Perp volume is taking a new path in crypto, driven by the hype in DEX trading that comes with higher leverage and privacy features. LIT has emerged among the most preferred, hitting the top four.

Over the past week, the perp volume has grown by more than 34%, as per DefiLlama. Only Hyperliquid [HYPE] and Aster [ASTER] took a bigger share than LIT.

On top of that, the Lighter network made a new daily high in perp volume of $7.53 billion for this year. All of these factors played a part in the price recovery, even though the gains were seen in the majority of altcoins.

Despite the push-up, partly contributed by the surge in perp volume and trading activity of the exchange token, the token was stagnant. But why is it stagnant when gains are in double-digit figures?

Why is LIT’s price still stagnant?

Over the past month, LIT/USDT has been bouncing between the $1.40 and $2.04 zones. The scale of the period was enough to draw such a conclusion. However, the move was something to trigger attention on the altcoin.

On the 4-hour chart, LIT had just flipped above the SuperTrend indicator, an indication that bulls were starting to flow in. The Accumulation/Distribution showed about 94.88 million LIT were being distributed.

This explained why the altcoin was still selling. Most tokens were shortened, even though the price was above the middle of its latest sideways consolidation.

Only breaking above $1.805 and $2.041 can sustain the uptrend. Otherwise, the consolidation lasts through a bear territory.

However, given the divided sentiment between whales and retail, the rally could be short-lived.

Tug-of-war between whales and retail!

Retail traders were mostly buying due to the recent gains. Retail traders were placing LIT token long orders reaching $800 on the Uniswap (UNI) DEX, according to Etherscan.  There were also a few sales that aligned with what whales were thinking.

For the whales, they continued to add more of their sell orders. As per data from Onchain Lens, a whale opened multiple short positions with LIT as one of them.

This whale was sitting at a $1.59 million profit from the LIT trade with a 3x leverage. This outcome was despite the day’s gains.

As such, it puts whales at an advantage even though retail was capitalizing on the short-term retracement. For a breakout or reversal, whales need to reverse their bias.

Final Thoughts

• Perpetual futures volume, which spiked 34% this week, drove LIT’s 13% rally. 
• Whales continued to sell, putting the altcoin under sell pressure despite buys from retail.