IO vs LIT
io.net and Lighter scored on the same 25 variables, ranked against the same 251 tokens, with every gap between them shown.
Scoring pass 18 Sept 2026. Market snapshot 7 Oct 2026.
What separates them
IO scores 108 of 250 and ranks 100th of 251. LIT scores 125 and ranks 54th. LIT leads by 17 points, which is a real gap, though small enough that one variable moving would close much of it. IO takes 5 of the 25 variables, LIT takes 14, and 6 are level.
4 variables separate them by 3 points or more. LIT is clear on Protocol Revenue (7 against 4), Supply Inflation (5 against 2) and Buyback and Burn (6 against 3).
Both score 3 or below on Vesting Schedule, Circulating / FDV Ratio, Insider Selling, Holder Concentration. A weakness both sides share is not a reason to prefer either. It is a reason to check whether the category itself carries the problem.
LIT still has 75% of its eventual supply to enter circulation against 48.7% for IO. On the same market capitalisation, a buyer of LIT is taking the 4x dilution path and a buyer of IO the 1.95x one.
LIT is valued at $876.5M against $63.1M for IO, a 13.9x difference. The larger of the two also scores higher, so the market and the framework agree on the ordering here.
IO trades 97.6% below its all-time high and LIT 55.4% below its own. Recovering the high needs 41.7x from IO and 2.2x from LIT, which is the same statement read as the return each one has to produce.
All 25 variables, head to head
Both tokens were scored by the same framework in the same pass, so the numbers are directly comparable. What a comparison adds over two separate pages is the gap: a 6 against a 6 is a non-event, a 9 against a 3 is the reason to hold one and not the other.
Cash flow
| Protocol Revenue | 4 | 7 | LIT +3 | |
| Revenue Trend | 5 | 4 | IO +1 | |
| P/S Multiple | 6 | 7 | LIT +1 | |
| Real Staking Yield | 4 | 2 | IO +2 |
Supply
| Supply Inflation | 2 | 5 | LIT +3 | |
| Vesting Schedule | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Circulating / FDV Ratio | 2 | 3 | LIT +1 | |
| Buyback and Burn | 3 | 6 | LIT +3 |
Ownership
| Smart Money Flows | 5 | 8 | LIT +3 | |
| Insider Selling | 3 | 3 | level | |
| Holder Concentration | 3 | 2 | IO +1 |
Traction
| TVL Trend | 4 | 4 | level | |
| Active Users | 4 | 5 | LIT +1 | |
| Developer Activity | 6 | 7 | LIT +1 | |
| Network Growth | 5 | 5 | level |
Position
| Market Share | 4 | 4 | level | |
| Competitive Moat | 5 | 6 | LIT +1 | |
| Institutional Adoption | 5 | 7 | LIT +2 | |
| Exchange Depth | 5 | 6 | LIT +1 | |
| Social Mindshare | 4 | 5 | LIT +1 |
Risk
| Regulatory Safety | 6 | 5 | IO +1 | |
| Catalyst Calendar | 5 | 7 | LIT +2 | |
| BTC Alpha Potential | 4 | 2 | IO +2 | |
| Team Execution | 6 | 6 | level | |
| Treasury Runway | 6 | 7 | LIT +1 |
Bars read outward from the centre: IO to the left, LIT to the right. The side that leads a variable is filled. Each score is 1 to 10 against the same definition applied to all 251 rated tokens.
Market and supply
| IO | LIT | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.1537 | $3.51 |
| Market cap | $63.1M | $876.5M |
| Circulating | 51.3% | 25% |
| Dilution to full supply | 1.95x | 4x |
| Off all-time high | -97.6% | -55.4% |
| To recover the high | 41.7x | 2.2x |
| Total value locked | not published | $519.5M |
| Network | Ethereum | Ethereum |
Price, market cap and all-time high from the CoinGecko snapshot fetched 7 Oct 2026. Supply shares are derived from circulating and eventual supply counts, which do not move with price. The 25 scores come from the research pass dated 18 Sept 2026.
Catalyst and risk on each side
IO · WATCH
AI compute demand boom driving GPU marketplace utilization; IO Cloud enterprise partnerships expanding real revenue
Only 18% circulating; 82% supply open over 3 years creates structural sell pressure; competing with Akash, Render, and centralized clouds
LIT · WATCH
Lighter EVM Q2-Q3 2026, Telegram Wallet 150M users, CFTC license pursuit, potential Binance listing
Dec 2026 cliff releases 500M tokens (50% supply), 83% volume collapse from TGE peak, only 4,420 holders, L2BEAT Stage 0
Common questions
- Is IO or LIT the better investment?
- On this framework LIT scores higher: 125 against 108 of 250, and it is rated WATCH against WATCH. That is a ranking of fundamentals as recorded at the last scoring pass, not a price forecast, and IO still wins 5 of the 25 individual variables against LIT.
- What is the biggest difference between IO and LIT?
- Protocol Revenue. IO scores 4 of 10 there and LIT scores 7, a gap of 3 points on a single variable.
- Which is bigger, IO or LIT?
- IO is valued at $63.1M and LIT at $876.5M on the latest market snapshot.
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Research and analysis, not investment advice. A higher score is one framework applied consistently to 251 tokens, not a prediction that one asset will outperform the other.