Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
WLFI is really coming. On August 23, the Trump family's crypto project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) announced that it will open the first application and trading of WLFI tokens on September 1. Early supporters of this application (at $0.015 and $0.05 rounds) can only unlock 20%, while the remaining 80% of the unlocking plan will be decided by the community through governance voting; the tokens of the founding team, advisors, and partners will not be unlocked at launch.
After the clear launch date and unlocking plan for the tokens were announced, exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Hyperliquid also announced the pre-trading of WLFI/USDT perpetual contracts, pricing WLFI in advance. According to Binance data, WLFI peaked at $0.55 in pre-trading, then fell sharply, currently maintaining a price around $0.22, with a fully diluted valuation of $22 billion.
Even though WLFI's pre-trading price has halved from its peak, it has already achieved an expected return of over 14 times for participants in the first and second rounds of public offerings. With just one week left until WLFI officially launches, what kind of script will WLFI's price follow after opening? Odaily Planet Daily will analyze this in the article for readers' reference.
Script One: Participants Hedge, Opening Price "Plummets"
WLFI is already too expensive, which is the direct feeling of many people. WLFI's pre-contract price on Binance surged to $0.55, giving it a fully diluted valuation of $55 billion, surpassing TRX and DOGE, placing WLFI directly in the 8th position by market cap in crypto. Even if the current price has fallen to around $0.22, the $22 billion fully diluted valuation still exceeds many recent popular tokens like LINK and HYPE.
If the price maintains at the current level at launch, early investors (first and second round public offering participants) will achieve over 14 times returns. Even if only 20% is unlocked, they have already realized considerable returns, making it likely that WLFI will "douse" the market after launch. Based on this analysis, in the face of selling pressure from early investors, the likelihood of major funds actively absorbing the selling pressure at WLFI's launch is extremely low, and WLFI is likely to "plummet" in the first wave after launch.
Moreover, the fermentation period from WLFI's inception last year to its upcoming launch has been too long, and the positive news has basically run its course. The market may have fully priced WLFI in the pre-contracts, and ordinary investors who did not participate in the public offerings will have costs far exceeding those of early investors, making them unwilling to take over the initially unlocked tokens.
As a result, many players participating in the public offering will choose to hedge through WLFI contracts, securing some profits in advance. According to Coinglass data, as of now, the total WLFI contract positions across the network have reached 1.272 billion tokens, valued at approximately $279 million, with Binance holding 698 million WLFI contracts, accounting for 53.77% of the total, valued at $150 million.
At the same time, many players believe that although the tokens of the WLFI team and institutions are not unlocked, they may have already profited through pre-contract hedging. Compared to retail investors, project parties/institutions with larger volumes and higher tolerance for errors are more capable of hedging through contracts. This is not an unfounded speculation about the Trump family; it is no secret that the Trump family views the crypto industry as a "cash cow." Previous analyses by the Financial Times suggested that Trump has profited at least $350 million from TRUMP, including token sales and market-making fees.
According to public information, the Trump family has currently earned $57.35 million from WLFI tokens through token sales. If the team and partners' tokens are not unlocked initially, the possibility of profiting through pre-contract hedging is very high. This also means that after WLFI launches, the team and its market makers may not actively raise WLFI's price for some time.
Script Two: WLFI Will Mirror TRUMP's Initial Launch Script
However, from another perspective, some believe that the pre-contract price is merely a reflection of market sentiment and market maker manipulation, unrelated to the project itself. Due to the previous market overheating, it triggered a liquidation of long positions by speculators. Similarly, in the one or two days before WLFI's launch, WLFI may also be significantly driven up due to short squeezes. According to Coinglass data, WLFI contracts currently have a dominant long position, with $2.1636 million in long positions liquidated on Binance in 24 hours, compared to $1.045 million in short positions.
In addition, since WLFI is also from the Trump family, it may follow a similar script to TRUMP after its launch. Although WLFI's current fully diluted valuation has reached hundreds of billions, its actual circulating market value is not high. A total of 25 billion tokens were sold in the first and second rounds of public offerings, but only 5 billion tokens will be in circulation during this initial unlocking, with the unlocking plan for the remaining public offering tokens pending community voting, and the tokens of the founding team, advisors, and partners will not be unlocked at launch. This means that if calculated at the current price of $0.22, WLFI's circulating market value at launch would be $1.1 billion, which is indeed an undervaluation for a project of WLFI's level.
In fact, this is similar to the initial launch script of TRUMP, which had a total of 1 billion tokens, with a circulating supply of 200 million at launch. This led to TRUMP's market cap rapidly reaching $10 billion on the same day, but when players realized the token structure of TRUMP, the market still considered the token backed by President Trump to be undervalued.
WLFI also has Trump's endorsement, and on the day WLFI officially launches, it is highly likely that Trump will congratulate WLFI on social media or make various "pump" statements, and the ambiguous relationship with the president will also bring more speculative space for WLFI. Therefore, WLFI's price may also be continuously pushed higher at launch.
Even if TRUMP drained market liquidity at its release, and the market recognized the "true nature" of the Trump family and demystified celebrity coins, one can argue that the Trump family understands that "pumping is the best marketing." Moreover, WLFI is not a purely meme coin; it also has businesses like the USD1 stablecoin. Only by pushing WLFI's price higher can it convert crypto financial traffic into substantial ecological driving force.
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