Lighter vs Nado

Lighter is a fully-verifiable decentralized exchange built as a zero-knowledge rollup on Ethereum, delivering high-frequency trading performance with onchain security and composability. Its custom ZK circuits prove every operation — including order matching and liquidations — with millisecond latency and the ability to process tens of thousands of orders per second. The optimized matching engine enables zero fees for retail traders and highly competitive pricing for high-frequency strategies, while deposits, withdrawals and proofs are verified publicly on Ethereum. Lighter's mainnet is live, offering low-cost, low-latency perpetual trading backed by transparent, cryptographically-secured settlement.

Nado is a high-performance central-limit orderbook (CLOB) DEX built on Ink L2, combining off-chain execution with on-chain risk and settlement for ultra-low latency trading. It enables spot and perpetual markets under a unified margin system where collateral dynamically offsets risk across positions, maximizing capital efficiency. With features such as money markets, up to 20x leverage, liquidity provision via the NLP vault, and an HFT-friendly API, Nado delivers a professional trading experience with taker fees as low as 1.5 bps and maker rebates up to -0.8 bps, all while preserving full self-custody of assets.