Vladimir Novakovski: Lighter Bull Thesis For 2026 (What’s Changed)

Vladimir Novakovski sits down with Andy & Robbie to break down the Lighter bull thesis from The Tokenization Tower in NYC. We discuss Lighter's escape hatch design that lets every participant exit through Ethereum even if the protocol fails, why the RFQ model is the key to bootstrapping liquidity for pre-IPO and RWA perps, and why getting Citadel and US institutional capital on chain is the biggest unlock the perp market hasn't hit yet. He's working with the CFTC to make that happen.

Vladimir Novakovski is CEO of Lighter, a decentralized perp exchange built on top of Ethereum with an institutional-grade security-first architecture.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:37 Perp Market Awareness Today

03:26 Pitching Institutions On Lighter

05:28 Ethereum Security And Escape Hatch

07:54 How Market Makers Stay Comfortable

11:17 How Lighter Bootstraps Liquidity

12:35 Pre-IPO Perp Durability

15:37 Build In-House Or Composable

19:29 US Regulatory Path For Perps

23:29 CFTC Innovation Council Insights

26:39 Questions For Commissioner Hester Peirce

28:07 Team Culture And Miami Office

32:26 Founder Decision Making Framework

34:46 AI Agents And Lighter's Stack

37:30 Perps Market Structure Long View

41:21 Power Law Or Distributed Market?

Guest Socials:

Vladimir Novakovski X: https://x.com/vnovakovski

Lighter X: https://x.com/Lighter_xyz

Lighter Website: https://lighter.xyz/

Partners:

Better than Banks. Transparent capital efficiency earning the highest yields in DeFi. Learn more here: https://infinifi.xyz/

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Dinari - Over 230 1:1 backed tokenized stocks, ETFs & more with dividends. US-based SEC transfer agent. Available on 5+ chains & via API. https://dinari.com/

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Relay is the fastest and most reliable way to swap any token on any chain. Learn more here: https://relay.link/bridge

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Zama is an open source cryptography company that builds state-of-the-art Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) solutions for blockchain.

Learn more here: https://www.zama.org/

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Trezor is the creator of the first-ever hardware wallet. Securing crypto for 2M+ users worldwide. 100% open source.

Learn more here: https://affil.trezor.io/aff_c?offer_id=133&aff_id=36664

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𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥: 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘦𝘍𝘪 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬, 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘈𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭, 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱, 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴.