Early this morning, World Liberty Financial’s WLFI suddenly surged by more than 30%. Let’s try to understand what happened to account for such a sharp rise.
WLFI Suddenly Skyrockets
Over the past 24 hours, the price of World Liberty Financial’s WLFI has risen 30%, trading at nearly $0.16 at the time of writing.
Specifically, this surge occurred early this morning, with an impressive green candlestick showing a rise of up to 32% in one hour before retracing slightly:
WLFI price (hourly data)
However, there is currently no news from World Liberty Financial that would justify such a surge. On the other hand, on-chain data shows significant liquidations over the past few hours, relative to typical activity on perpetual contracts linked to the token.
More specifically, of the $3.25 million in liquidated short positions, 70% of this volume occurred on Hyperliquid (HYPE):
Liquidations in the last few hours on WLFI
While the amounts involved may seem small, they must nevertheless be viewed in the context of the token’s liquidity. In this case, market depth data shows that currently, less than $111,000 in long positions on Hyperliquid is needed to trigger a 2% price increase:
Market depth for WLFI perpetuals
However, while these figures shed light on the cause of the upward movement, they do not explain the reason behind these sudden liquidations. Was it a mistake by an overconfident trader? A short squeeze or insider trading? That remains to be clarified for now.
Recently, rumors have begun to circulate that Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of Binance, might join the World Liberty Financial team. However, he denied this in an interview with Fox News.
While CZ admits to having met Eric Trump in Abu Dhabi at a conference, he categorically denies any partnerships:
I think these reports are completely false. I have no business relationship with any of President Trump’s sons.
As for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s decentralized finance (DeFi) project has yet to deliver on the many promises made over the past few months, but it’s worth noting that its USD1 is currently the sixth-largest stablecoin on the market, with a market capitalization of $2.85 billion.
That said, this figure should be viewed in context, since $1.65 billion of that market capitalization is held in Binance’s 20th-ranked hot wallet.
