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The headline in crypto today is the finally launching of Lighter’s LIT token, marking an important moment in the ongoing battle for market share for criminals. In today’s coverage, we detail one of the most overlooked beneficiaries of the perpetrators’ growth (Pendle via Boros), and take a closer look at the evolving dynamics within Solana’s fluid landscape.
Indicators
Markets started the last week of the year on a softer note. Bitcoin (-0.81%) underperformed US stock indexes, with the Nasdaq (-0.59%) and S&P 500 (-0.39%) recording modest declines after technology stocks pushed the S&P 500 to all-time highs last week. Meanwhile, gold (-4.04%) and other precious metals saw a sharp sell-off amid profit-taking, after being an outstanding performer in the past few weeks.
Back on the crypto front, Perps (+1.3%) was the only index to end the day in the green, with HYPE leading gains before… TGE lighter today. Competition for market share has intensified in recent months. Lighter has shown that verifiable execution and zero retail fees can drive market-leading volume, resulting in the leaders trading volume of just over $200 billion over the past 30 days, followed by Aster ($172 billion) and Hyperliquid ($161 billion). However, Hyperliquid remains the only one of the three companies operating without active incentives and is the clear leader in revenue, generating nearly $47 million over the same period.
The real test will be whether Lighter can maintain his volume lead post-TGE, especially since many attribute his recent rise to point farming. In an announcement series last night, the team outlined the token structure and details of the airdrop, stating that “the value created by all Lighter products and services will accrue in full to LIT holders” and that the Labs entity will operate at cost. Token distribution is split between the ecosystem (50% of the total supply) and the team/investors (the remaining 50%), with 25% of the total supply handed over to point holders from Seasons 1 and 2.
As of the time of writing, LIT trades with a circulating market capitalization of US$695 million and FDV of US$2.8 billion. According to DeFiLlama, the protocol has been created $8.76 million in revenue over the past 30 days ($105M annually), which implies LIT trades at ~7x P/E and FDV/sales of ~27x.
Market update
While everyone is busy discussing who will win the perps race (mostly Hyperliquid vs. Lighter chatter after Lighter’s TGE), the most interesting beneficiary may be hiding in plain sight: Pendle, via Boros. In my view, Pendle will benefit from structural growth and adoption of perpetual futures, regardless of who ultimately dominates, the CEX or DEX bars.
Pendle launched Boros in early August 2025, bringing to DeFi a new on-chain financial primitive: interest rate swaps. One can think of Burros as a self-exchanging criminal, but with two major twists. First, instead of betting on asset price movements, one bets on yield movements. Second, while perpetuities (as the name suggests) have no expiration, burros markets have a maturity date.
Although Boros has been rolled out gradually, early traction has been strong. As shown in the chart below, daily open interest (OI) by maturity peaked at $245 million on December 26, 2025, when eight markets with a total value of $177 million in OI expired. The growth pattern in OI is highly cyclical, much like Pendle v2, reflecting the natural peaks and troughs around maturities and redemptions inherent in yield markets.
Regarding its basic mechanics, Boros enables trading of financing rates by creating a so-called Yield Unit (YU). For those familiar with Pendle v2 markets, YU is similar to the Yield Token (YT), and represents the future return of the underlying asset until its maturity date. Traders can either buy or sell on YU.
- Long position: If a trader purchases 2 YU-BTCUSDC-Hyperliquid at 10% of the implied APR, he is obligated to pay a fixed rate of 10%, receiving the base APR (funding rate payment) equivalent to the 2 BTC position in Hyperliquid BTCUSDC.
- Short position: In a short position, the trader commits to paying the floating base APR in exchange for a fixed APR, determined by the implied average APR at the time he enters the position (10% in this example).
In Boros, rates are settled periodically at the same time as the underlying exchange financing rate. For example, funding prices on Binance are settled every eight hours, so Boros prices for Binance pools are also settled every eight hours. Likewise, Hyperliquid funding prices are settled hourly, and Boros prices for these pools follow the same hourly settlement schedule. At maturity (or when the position is closed), if the underlying average APR > implied average APR at entry, the long position will make a profit and vice versa.
In addition to OI, which currently stands at around $88 million, another key metric for Boros is virtual trading volume. As shown in the chart below, Poros has processed approximately $6.8 billion in cumulative volume since launch, with average monthly volume of approximately $1.5 billion over the past four months.
Boros has two main sources of fees: (1) a fixed fee plus the implied APR per swap, which varies by market, and (2) a fixed fee of 0.2% on the side of the fixed APR per YU during settlement. The chart below shows that Boros has generated $300,000 in cumulative revenue since its inception, with an average monthly revenue of approximately $67,000 over the past four months. It should be noted that the liquidation fee is still minimal, at around $1,300 from the start.
Swap fees are related to the virtual trading volume. In a market with a swap fee of 0.05%, traders will make profits if the implied APR changes by more than 0.1% in their favor (assuming no yield adjustment), as traders will have to open and close the position, thus incurring twice the swap fee. On the other hand, OI fees (0.2% of fixed APR during settlement) follow the cyclical growth patterns of Boros’ OI.
While the bullish case for Poros is that it has become the default interest rate derivatives venue for DeFi (extending beyond funding rates to stablecoin yields, money market rates, LST yields and more), its biggest opportunity over the next six to 12 months lies squarely in the perpetual vertical. Boros launched with only BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT on markets on Binance in August, but has since expanded to include additional venues (Hyperliquid and OKX) and assets (HYPE). The chart below shows that Binance dominated OI early on, but it is now almost evenly distributed across venues as of December 29: Binance (37%), Hyperliquid (35%), and OKX (29%).
In terms of asset dominance, the ETH-USD market remains the largest in Poros in terms of OI, followed by BTC-USD and HYPE-USD.
The main advantage of Boros is that it takes advantage of the maturity of perpetual currencies without being tied to any single venue, as it can support multiple exchanges and assets. As more sophisticated participants enter the criminal sphere, they will likely demand strategies uniquely enabled by Poros: hedging financing receivables into a long position, hedging financing receivables into a short position, or executing cash-and-carry trades. Looking to the future, as companies gain regulatory acceptance and more traditional companies trade RWA products like stocks and commodities, these players will want to trade YUs of TSLA, gold, and hundreds of other assets on Boros.
Today, Boros represents less than 5% of Pendle v2 revenue, but is well positioned to be the protocol’s most important growth vector and may eventually rival or surpass v2 over time.
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