Original Title: "WLFI Pre-market Halved, Will the Peak or 'Plunge' Happen on September 1st?"

Original Author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily

WLFI is really coming this time. On August 23, the Trump family's crypto project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) announced that the WLFI token would be open for initial claim and trading on September 1. Early supporters of this claim (0.015 and 0.05 USD rounds) will only be able to unlock 20%, with the remaining 80% unlock plan to be determined by the community through governance voting. Tokens for the founding team, advisors, and partners will not unlock at launch.

After the clear token launch date and unlock plan were announced, exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Hyperliquid also announced pre-market trading of WLFI/USDT perpetual contracts to pre-price WLFI. According to Binance data, WLFI surged to a high of 0.55 USD pre-market, then steadily declined, with the current price holding near 0.22 USD, and WLFI's fully diluted valuation also maintaining a 220 billion USD valuation.

Even though WLFI's pre-market price has halved from its peak, first and second round public sale participants have already achieved over 14x expected returns. With just one week left until WLFI's official launch, what kind of scenario will the WLFI price follow after trading begins? Odaily Planet Daily will analyze this in this article for readers' reference.

Scenario One: Participants Hedge Risk, Opening Price Plunges

WLFI is already too expensive, which is the direct feeling of many people. WLFI soared to 0.55 USD on the Binance pre-contract price, with a fully diluted valuation of 550 billion USD, surpassing TRX and DOGE, propelling WLFI into the 8th spot in the crypto market cap rankings. Even though the current price has fallen back to around 0.22 USD, the 220 billion USD fully diluted valuation has also surpassed various recent popular tokens such as LINK and HYPE.

If the price remains at the current level at launch, early investors (first and second round public sale participants) will achieve over 14x returns. Even with only a 20% unlock, a considerable return has already been realized, making it highly likely that WLFI will have a significant impact on the market after launch. Based on this analysis, in the face of early investor selling pressure, the likelihood of major funds actively absorbing selling pressure at launch is very low, so WLFI will likely experience a significant plunge in the first wave of trading.

Furthermore, WLFI has experienced a prolonged period from its birth last year to the upcoming launch, and the phase-specific positive factors have been mostly exhausted. The market may have already fully priced in WLFI during the pre-launch futures contract trading. Ordinary investors who did not participate in the public sale will face a much higher cost than early investors and will not be willing to buy the newly unlocked tokens.

Therefore, many participants in the public sale will choose to hedge through WLFI futures contracts to secure some profits in advance. According to Coinglass data, as of now, the total WLFI futures contract position across all platforms is 1.272 billion tokens, worth approximately $279 million. Among them, Binance holds 698 million WLFI futures contract tokens, accounting for 53.77% of the total network and valued at $150 million.

Additionally, many players believe that while the WLFI team's and institutions' tokens are not unlocked, they may have already profited through pre-launch contract hedging. Compared to retail investors, project teams and institutions with large holdings and high tolerance levels are more capable of engaging in contract hedging. This is not baseless speculation about the Trump family; the Trump family has openly treated the crypto industry as a "cash-out playground," and it has been no secret. A previous Financial Times analysis suggested that Trump made at least $350 million from TRUMP, including token sale revenue and liquidity provision fees.

According to public information, the Trump family has earned $57.35 million from WLFI token sales alone. If the team and partners' tokens do not unlock early on, the likelihood of profiting through pre-launch contract hedging is high. This also means that after WLFI goes live, the team and its market makers may not actively drive up the WLFI price for some time.

Scenario Two: WLFI will replicate the TRUMP early launch scenario

However, from another perspective, some believe that the pre-launch contract price is merely a reflection of market sentiment and market maker manipulation, unrelated to the project itself. Due to the previous overheated market, triggering liquidation of long positions by whales, similarly, a few days before WLFI's launch, WLFI may also see a significant pump due to short squeezing. According to Coinglass data, the current trend of WLFI contracts is heavily skewed towards longs, with $2.1636 million liquidated in 24-hour long positions on Binance and $1.045 million liquidated in short positions.

In addition, both originating from the hands of the Trump family, WLFI may follow a similar trajectory to TRUMP post-launch. Although WLFI's fully diluted valuation has reached several billion dollars, its actual circulating market cap is not very high. WLFI's first and second rounds of public sale collectively sold 25 billion tokens, while only 5 billion tokens are in circulation during the initial unlock of this launch, with the remaining public sale tokens awaiting community voting for unlocking. Simultaneously, the founding team, advisors, and partners' tokens will not unlock at launch. This means that based on the current price of $0.22, WLFI's circulating market cap at launch is $1.1 billion, which is significantly undervalued for a project of WLFI's caliber.

In fact, this is similar to the early script of TRUMP's launch. TRUMP has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with a circulating supply of 200 million tokens in the early days of its launch. This led to a situation where even though TRUMP's market value quickly reached $10 billion on the launch day, when players realized TRUMP's tokenomics, the market still believed that the token endorsed by President Trump was undervalued.

WLFI also has Trump's endorsement, and on the day of WLFI's official launch, there is a high possibility of Trump congratulating WLFI on social media or making various "pump" statements. The ambiguous relationship with the president will also bring more hype to WLFI. Therefore, the price of WLFI at launch may continue to be driven up.

Even though TRUMP's release initially drained market liquidity and the market saw through the true nature of the Trump family and the allure of celebrity coins, it is worth taking a step back. The Trump family understands the principle that "pumping the price is the best marketing strategy." Moreover, WLFI is not just a meme coin; it also has businesses such as the USD1 stablecoin. Only by pushing up the price of WLFI can the cryptocurrency flow be transformed into substantial ecological momentum.

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