Gold Breaks Records, $370M in Crypto Futures Liquidated as WLFI Struggles to Recover Confidence
By Omkar Godbole and Shaurya Malwa
Gold surged past $3,500 per ounce for the first time on Tuesday, setting a new record as bitcoin (BTC) remained rangebound near $110,752. Despite muted spot action, exchanges liquidated $370 million worth of crypto futures bets in the past 24 hours, catching traders positioned for downside moves off guard.
Blockchain tracker Lookonchain flagged significant whale activity, noting that address 0xFf15 sold 425 BTC (worth $46.5 million) in exchange for more than 10,500 ETH over four days. Meanwhile, Glassnode reported long-term holders realized profits by spending 97,000 BTC on Friday.
Derivatives Positioning
The wave of liquidations reduced open interest (OI) in futures tied to most major tokens, excluding BTC, where OI rose by more than 1%—a sign of fresh inflows. XRP printed a “spinning bottom” candle Monday, hinting at reversal potential, though OI in USD- and USDt-margined perpetuals dropped 5.69% alongside muted spot volume.
Funding rates for BTC, ETH, and other majors hovered just above zero on an eight-hour basis, suggesting a mild long bias. On CME, BTC futures positioning stayed light, while ETH futures maintained near-record open interest of 2 million contracts.
Options markets reflected caution. On Deribit, BTC puts traded at a premium to calls through December expiry, while ETH options carried a milder put bias. Options tied to SOL and XRP showed stronger demand for upside exposure. BTC block flows leaned bearish, with traders buying September $105K puts and writing October $135K calls. ETH traders focused on puts at $3,800 and $4,200.
Token Talk: WLFI
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the Trump-linked DeFi token, is rolling out a buyback-and-burn plan to restore confidence after a troubled debut. The proposal would direct fees from WLFI liquidity pools on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Solana toward token buybacks, with purchased tokens permanently burned.
Supporters argue the model reframes the token around engineered scarcity, linking growth in trading volume to increased burns. Critics, however, dismiss it as optics over fundamentals. WLFI trades at $0.23 with a $6.39 billion market cap, down 24% on the day and far below launch-time futures valuations above $40 billion.
Separately, a governance proposal seeks to stake 80% of locked WLFI supply into pools, rewarding participants with tokens from a 20% community reserve. Proponents call it a way to activate idle supply, while detractors see it as recycling.
WLFI’s launch has been plagued by exploits. Hackers abused Ethereum’s EIP-7702 delegate contract feature to drain wallets in phishing-style attacks, leaving some investors with only a fraction of their allocations. Security firm SlowMist warned the exploit triggers on transfers, rerouting funds directly to attacker wallets.
Adding to the turmoil, scam clones and phishing links spread rapidly across Telegram and X, compounding losses for early retail investors. The twin blows of a collapsing price and security breaches underscore WLFI’s fragile launch, marked by insider allocations, governance disputes, and persistent external risks.
