Lighter vs Spark

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.

SparkLend is MakerDAO’s permissionless lending front‑end that pipes DAI liquidity directly from the Maker core vault into isolated lending markets. Because the backend uses D3M credit lines, borrowers enjoy below‑market rates that float with the DAI Savings Rate. Since launch on Ethereum mainnet in May 2023 Spark TVL has oscillated between 300‑600 million DAI and is governed by MKR Executive Votes.