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The mainnet launch of WDC, the core native asset of the highly controversial project Worldcoin, stole all the headlines in financial media in the past week. As the dust settles, an array of surprising facts about WDC's first days of trading are spotted by analysts from the leading research firm Kaiko.
Low liquidity, market makers domination: Analysts deobfuscate Worldcoin (WDC) release economics
The launch of the WDC token was unique in many regards. Almost the entire Worldcoin (WDC) circulating supply was loaned to market makers, while only 1% of it was released to users, Breaking Down Worldcoin's Launch report by Kaiko's Riyad Carey says.
1/ Worldcoin's $WLD launch is one of the more unique I can remember:
— Riyad Carey (@riyad_carey) July 28, 2023
Nearly 90% of circulating supply was loaned to market makers
Only 1% of total supply was released
Listing was (as expected) very efficient, though there was some suspected wash trading
Let's get into it pic.twitter.com/dSsmMhE8H0
Carey tracked the performance of WLD/USDT pairs on Binance, Bybit, Huobi, MEXC, OKX; WLD/USDC pair on Bybit as well as WLD/ETH pair on Uniswap. Surprisingly, world's largest exchange Binance (BNB) was not the first one in terms of liquidity registered in the pair.
Also, the total volume of liquidity in pairs with WLD and stablecoins plummeted faster: Despite a large batch of WDC being loaned to market makers, the net liquidity volume (USD-denominated) is 68% lower than that of Aptos (APT) and 37.5% lower than that of Arbitrum (ARB).
The trading volume on major centralized exchanges also disappeared very fast: On Binance (BNB), the fourth trading session was nine times less active than the first one. At the same time, on Huobi, the trading volume remains stable for all four sessions analyzed.
As covered by U.Today previously, the Worldcoin (WDC) token was released to exchanges Monday, July 24, 2023. Users can get 25 WLD for having their eyes scanned by special orbs in various regions across the globe.
During the first hours of trading, the WLD price jumped by 55%.
"Way to convince people to scan their eyes"
Besides liquidity paradoxes and confusing tokenomics, the analyst noticed what is likely a market manipulation. They spotted a number of "clusters," i.e., trading patterns when a hypothetical WLD holder buys and sells a similar amount of tokens with zero profits and zero losses.
Such manipulations should be attributed to the very concept of the product that invites people to share their biometrics for an immediate 25 WLD reward:
The launch suggests that the team felt it had to assign an appealing $ value to their token. Convincing people to scan their eyes for 25 units of a token that doesn't yet exist can be challenging; if the token's price is, say, $0.10, it's even more challenging
With this dystopian scheme, Worldcoin (WDC) creators are attempting to pioneer the concept of "proof-of-personhood" as a secure and ZK-backed way for any person to prove that they are a human and unique.