Worldcoin issue under the microscope: tokenomics, liquidity…

Orb Worldcoin in Hong Kong – Credit: Worldcoin

Kaiko has dissected the launch token WLD of which only 1% of the supply total was launched on the market. Near 90% of thecirculating offer has been on loan to market makers. Explanations.

WLDon token of the Worldcoin project by Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), made his debut on the exchanges on July 24. For the moment, the initiative seems to be of particular interest to personal data regulators, the ICO in the UK and the Cnil in France.

But what about token WLD token itself? Riyad Carey, a researcher at Kaiko, deciphered its launch and its features. Tokenomics first. He reminds us that the supply of tokens is limited at this stage to 10 billion. Of course, not all of them are in circulation.

Worldcoin tokenomics “quite confusing

Worldcoin opted for a special issuance mechanism. The maximum supply in circulation at the time of launch was 143 million WLD. But of this total, 100 million tokens were lent to market makers operating outside the United States.

It should also be noted that 75% of total supply is destined for the ” Worldcoin Community “13.5% to investors and 10% to the development team. For the latter two categories, tokens are “locked for 12 months after launch, then unlocked linearly over the following 24 months”.

Riyad Carey’s first observation is that the tokenomics of Worldcoin is “rather confusing”, due in particular to distinctions between “circulating” and “unlocked” supply. WLD is not an isolated case, he adds.

So, at this stage, just over 1% of the total supply is circulatingalmost all of which has been lent to market makers. Worldcoin had previously provided information on this subject. Five holders collectively “received loans of WLD 100 million for a period of 3 months after the token’s launch”.

The neatest launch ever

Second observation: “This is probably the most orderly launch ever for a token with this level of interest”, says the researcher.

The quotation started on Bybit and Huobi. Uniswap followed “with around 200 transactions at around $3.5, whereas the price was almost a dollar lower on the centralized exchanges”.

Binance finally played the role ofarbitrator. The listing on Binance has thus clearly changed the market dynamics, observes Kaiko. In the first 2 hours of token trading, the combined volume of other exchanges was $16 million.

During its first hour on Binancevolume reached $65 million. The listing on the first exchange initially caused a spike in volatility “before all prices quickly converged and began trading at the same rate”.

For Kaiko, and despite some price discrepancies, particularly on DEX, WLD is the launch “the cleanest in terms of price discovery in recent memory”. Trading is not without artificial transactionsthe researcher nevertheless notes.

Low liquidity and a desire to keep prices attractive

Concerning the liquidity finally. With supply almost entirely in the hands of market makets, Kaiko was anticipating satisfactory levels. Liquidity is fairly well balanced between exchanges.

Surprisingly, Bybit is actually more liquid at the 1% level than Binance, despite the latter’s significantly higher volumes. Liquidity has also remained virtually unchanged since the token’s launch,” comments Riyad Carey.

Given the conditions of this eagerly-awaited launch, the expert believes that surprising the token’s “still relatively low liquidity”. Another hypothesis: “the nature of the launch suggests that the team may have felt the need to assign an attractive monetary value to its token”.

The 25 WLD tokens are currently worth just over $50 and will probably remain in this range for the next three months. So far, this seems to be encouraging people to sign up and scan,” concludes the researcher.

To followCrypto news and Web3find Corners.en on TwitterLinkedin, Facebook or Telegram