WLFI price crashes 20% as unlocks and whale dumps fuel panic

A combination of early unlocks, whale dumping, and panic contributed to a major WLFI price crash.

World Financial Liberty (WLFI) traded at one point lower by more than 30%, extending a brutal multi-week sell-off that has erased nearly half of the token’s market cap. On Friday, October 10, the World Liberty Financial token, linked to the Trump family, traded as low as $0.1405 before bouncing back to $0.1459.

The crash extended a multi-week decline, during which it lost nearly half of its value from the multi-month high of $0.252 on September 21. Still, even after its peak, the token did not decline as rapidly as it did on October 10.

Several other projects associated with Donald Trump are also falling as a result of the panic. Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin lost 3.1% during the day, compounding a monthly loss of 18%. TrumpCoin (DJT), which has no connection with the Trump family, fell 38.4% the same day.

Why did the WLFI token price collapse?

Several catalysts contributed to the steep decline of the WLFI token. The most likely explanation is the lingering effects of early WLFI unlocks. Notably, the project unlocked 20% of all presale tokens on September 1, the same day that trading started.

This contributed to an explosion of liquidity, and many early investors sold. However, not all were so lucky, as the token launch was embroiled in a controversy with one of its biggest backers, Justin Sun. Sun, who has close business ties with World Liberty Financial, said that the WLFI team froze his tokens, which eroded trust in the project.

WLFI also sold 100 million tokens to Bitcoin mining firm Hut 8 for $25 million on October 4. While the transaction was relatively minor compared to the token’s $3.6 billion market cap, it might have contributed to fears of insider selling.