Arcus vs Lighter (2026): Zero Fees vs Low Fees on Robinhood Chain

ArcusvsLighter

This is the comparison that matters most for anyone trading on Robinhood Chain. Arcus and Lighter both run order-book perp exchanges on the same chain, both use USDG as collateral, and both list stock perps next to crypto. Lighter is bigger there, it charges nothing for Standard accounts, and it is the perps partner inside Robinhood Wallet. Arcus is cheaper than Lighter's Premium tier, documents no order delay, and has a much larger Stock Token spot catalog.

All figures below come from DefiLlama, each exchange's public API, or Lighter's and Arcus's own docs, pulled on October 2, 2026.

Source: Lighter on Robinhood Chain, captured October 2, 2026, used under fair use for educational purposes

Two Lighters, one comparison

Lighter runs two exchanges. The main one is a ZK-proven order book that settles to Ethereum and uses USDC. The second is a separate exchange on Robinhood Chain (DefiLlama calls it "Lighter Robinhood Perps"), with its own markets and USDG collateral. Lighter's own docs tell integrators to keep balances, keys and market IDs separate for the two (Lighter RH docs).

This article compares Arcus with the Robinhood Chain exchange, because that is the one competing for the same users, the same collateral and the same Stock Token traders. Where Lighter's main exchange matters, I say so. For everything else about Lighter, our sister site Lighterpedia covers it in depth.

Side by side

Lighter wins on volume, fees for patient traders and stock-perp depth; Arcus wins on execution speed, paid-tier pricing and Stock Token range.

	Arcus	Lighter (Robinhood Chain)
Fee, default account	0.0225% taker / 0% maker (beta)	0% / 0% (Standard)
Delay on default account	None stated; Arcus claims ~20 ms confirmations	300 ms taker, 200 ms maker and cancel
Faster paid tier	Not needed: one speed for every account	Premium: 0.035% / 0.012%, still a 200 ms taker delay
Stock Token spot	190+ Stock Tokens (Arcus's count), 0% Arcus fee	25 stock and ETF pairs on 27 spot books
Robinhood Wallet	Stock Token swaps route through Arcus	Perps partner
BTC depth within 0.10%	$2.93M / $3.05M	$1.95M / $1.77M
30-day perp volume	$4.11B	$12.70B
Open interest	$44.1M	$227.9M
Share of Robinhood Chain perp volume (30d)	24.3%	75.0%
Perp markets	67 listed, 60 online	57
NVDA depth within 0.10% (off-hours)	$0.03M / $0.01M	$0.32M / $0.30M
Token	None (points program)	LIT

Sources: DefiLlama Robinhood Chain perps; Arcus /v1/feetiers and /v1/markets; Lighter RH account tiers and its public orderBooks endpoint; order-book snapshot at 04:14 UTC on October 2, 2026.

Fees: Lighter's zero and what it costs

Lighter's Standard account is free to trade. Its Robinhood Chain API returned taker_fee: 0.0000 and maker_fee: 0.0000 on all 84 order books on October 2, 2026, and the order panel in the screenshot above shows "Taker: 0% | Maker: 0%". That is the best headline price on the chain.

The cost is latency. Lighter's own Robinhood Chain account-tier table lists, for Standard accounts:

• 300 ms taker latency before a market or crossing order executes
• 200 ms maker latency (the docs flag this as a difference from Lighter mainnet, where Standard post-only orders have no delay)
• 200 ms cancel latency
• 60 requests per minute for order transactions

If you place a few trades a day by hand, a third of a second rarely matters. If you scalp fast moves, run a bot, or need to pull quotes quickly when price jumps, it does. Lighter's paid tiers, based on 14-day volume, cut the delay without removing it:

Arcus's base taker of 0.0225% during beta is cheaper than every Premium tier on that list, and Arcus makers pay 0% at tiers 0 to 4. Lighter's Plus tier, at 0.005% each way, undercuts Arcus's beta taker, with the same 300 ms taker delay as Standard. Arcus's architecture docs describe an off-chain matching engine with "~20 ms trade confirmations" (docs). That is Arcus's claim, and I have not timed it. I found no documented order delay on Arcus.

In dollars, for a $10,000 BTC market order:

• Lighter Standard: $0, after a 300 ms wait
• Arcus Base tier, beta: $2.25 (about $2.14 with the 5% referral discount Arcus shows in its app)
• Lighter Premium, under $1M: $3.50

After the Arcus beta ends, its base rate moves to 0.045% taker and 0.015% maker, which is more than Lighter Premium. The Arcus fees guide has the full tier table, and the fee calculator prices your own size.

What a month of trading costs

Say you trade $1,000,000 of BTC perps in a month, all as taker orders:

• Lighter RH Standard: $0, with every order waiting 300 ms
• Arcus Base tier, beta: $1,000,000 × 0.0225% = $225 (about $214 with the 5% referral discount)
• Lighter RH Premium, under $1M of 14-day volume: $1,000,000 × 0.035% = $350
• Arcus Base tier after beta: $1,000,000 × 0.045% = $450

Shift half of that volume to resting limit orders and Arcus's cost drops to about $112.50 during beta, because makers pay nothing at tiers 0 to 4.

Volume and liquidity: Lighter is bigger

Lighter's Robinhood Chain exchange is the larger venue on the chain by a wide margin. DefiLlama's Robinhood Chain perps page showed:

• 30-day volume: Lighter RH $12.70B, Arcus $4.11B (about 3x)
• Open interest: Lighter RH $227.9M, Arcus $44.1M (about 5x)
• Share of chain perp volume: Lighter RH 75.0%, Arcus 24.3%
• TVL: Lighter RH $108.1M, Arcus $34.0M

Lighter RH also earned more: $1.85M of fees over 30 days against Arcus's $713K, per DefiLlama's fee data. Zero-fee Standard accounts do not mean the exchange collects nothing.

The order books are more mixed. In the October 2 snapshot (04:14 UTC), Arcus had the deeper BTC book close to the mid, and Lighter RH matched or beat it further out and on stocks:

The stock rows need a warning. The snapshot was taken at 00:14 New York time, with US markets closed. Arcus raises margin and applies price bands on equity perps outside regular hours (docs), which can thin its books overnight. Even so, on that snapshot Lighter RH was deeper on NVDA and SPY.

Markets: overlapping, with a few different bets

Both exchanges list crypto majors, big-tech stocks, SPY, QQQ and commodity trackers. Arcus's markets API listed 67 perps (60 online): 25 crypto, 34 equities, 4 commodity ETFs and 4 index ETFs. Lighter RH's API listed 57 perps.

Where they differ:

• Pre-IPO names. Lighter RH lists OPENAI, ANTHROPIC and SHEIN perps. Arcus lists an SPCX (SpaceX) perp and Stock Token; its pre-IPO plans are roadmap only.
• Leverage. Arcus goes up to 50x on SPY and 40x on BTC. Lighter RH's interface showed BTC at 50x on October 2.
• Off-hours rules. Arcus documents an off-hours regime for stock perps (higher margin, price bands, funding locked to SOFR plus 0.5%). If you hold stock perps over weekends, read the Arcus 24/7 stock trading guide.

Stock Tokens: Arcus's widest lead

Both exchanges let you buy Stock Tokens, the tokenized stocks and ETFs native to Robinhood Chain. The difference is range and route.

Lighter RH's API listed 27 spot order books on October 2, 2026: 25 stock and ETF tokens (NVDA, TSLA, SPY, QQQ, AAPL and others) plus ETH and PONS, all against USDG, with about $2.0M of combined 24-hour spot volume.

Arcus says it lists "over 190" Stock Tokens (Arcus) and charges no Arcus fee on them. Its spot side works differently from an order book: a router collects firm quotes from market makers and on-chain pools and fills you at the best one, gasless for most token-to-token swaps. Your cost is the spread inside the quote. Since October 1, Robinhood Wallet routes Stock Token swaps through the Arcus API.

So Robinhood Wallet uses both exchanges for different jobs: Lighter for perps and Arcus for Stock Token swaps. Robinhood has also said Lighter "committed 11 million $LIT tokens to the Robinhood community" (Robinhood newsroom).

Spot on Arcus needs no invite code in eligible regions, so it is the easiest place to start.

Getting started on either

Both exchanges take USDG on Robinhood Chain, so the money side looks similar. On Arcus, deposits run through Fun: crypto from Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Solana, Bitcoin and other chains, a Coinbase account connection, or card, Apple Pay and Google Pay, with no Arcus deposit fee (card on-ramps cost about 2.1%). You can sign in with an email address through an embedded Privy wallet. Arcus also runs a testnet with about $1,000 of test USDG, which is a cheap way to try its order entry before committing money.

Access, tokens and points

Perps access. Arcus perps are in a gated beta. You need an invite code (earned at one per $1M of qualifying volume) or a waitlist slot (Arcus). A referral link does not unlock perps; it gives you a fee discount. Our invite code and waitlist guide explains the difference. Lighter volume counted toward the Arcus perps waitlist, so Lighter traders have had a route in.

Regions. Both exchanges bar US persons; Lighter's API returns an error to US IP addresses. Arcus's terms also restrict Canada, the UK and sanctioned regions, and the Help Center adds Switzerland for spot. See Arcus not available in your country. This is a description of each platform's terms, not legal advice.

Tokens. Lighter's LIT token is live, and Lighter runs a separate Robinhood Chain points program. Arcus has no token. Arcus Points started Season 1 on October 1, 2026, and Arcus's Protocol Terms say points carry no right to any token or airdrop. More in Arcus points, token and airdrop.

Who runs it. Arcus is built by dYdX Labs (the trade name of dYdX Trading Inc.) in partnership with Robinhood Crypto, a strategic investor. Arcus's docs compare its own hybrid design to "StarkEx and Lighter": off-chain matching with on-chain custody and an escape hatch. Background in What Is Arcus?.

Which one fits you?

Lighter on Robinhood Chain suits you if:

• You trade by hand, a few times a day, and a 300 ms delay costs less than a fee.
• You trade stock perps in size, where its books were deeper in my snapshot.
• You want pre-IPO perps like OPENAI or ANTHROPIC, or you already trade through Robinhood Wallet's perps integration.

Arcus suits you if:

• You want fills with no documented speed bump at a 0.0225% taker fee and 0% maker.
• You want a broad Stock Token catalog at 0% Arcus fee alongside perps.
• Your BTC orders fit inside about $3M, where Arcus's top of book was the deeper of the two.

Many active traders on Robinhood Chain will keep accounts on both. For the bigger picture, compare Arcus vs Hyperliquid and Arcus vs dYdX Chain, or read What Is Robinhood Chain?.