The cryptocurrency market faces significant volatility as the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial (WLFI) token experiences a dramatic decline of over 40% since its launch on Monday. This downturn has resulted in substantial financial losses for large investors, commonly referred to as “whales.” Despite this sharp drop, many pre-sale participants continue to hold their investments, indicating a blend of confidence and uncertainty in the token’s future.
According to data from blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps, approximately 60% of the over 85,000 pre-sale participants remain committed to holding WLFI tokens. In contrast, 29% have opted to sell their holdings entirely. The decline in WLFI’s price occurred despite a large-scale token burn event aimed at tightening supply and enhancing the value of remaining tokens. Whale investors, however, have found themselves facing significant losses, with one prominent whale wallet, 0x432, reporting a loss exceeding $1.6 million after closing a leveraged position.
“The moral of the story: never be in FOMO,” remarked Onchain Lens, emphasizing the pitfalls of making hasty investment decisions.
This cautionary note comes after the investor re-entered a long position on the WLFI token only 15 hours after securing a $915,000 profit from a previous trade, ultimately incurring a loss of $1.6 million. This trend of selling among whale investors highlights diminishing confidence regarding the token’s price outlook. The selling activity coincided with WLFI’s recent token burn, where 47 million tokens were permanently removed from circulation in hopes of stabilizing the price. Nevertheless, WLFI’s price declined further by 18% within 24 hours, marking a total drop of 41% since its inception, as reported by CoinMarketCap.
In contrast, the Avalanche blockchain has seen a surge in activity, driven by decentralized trading and speculation among crypto whales regarding potential new memecoins. Recent reports indicate a 66% increase in transactions on Avalanche, reaching 11.9 million across more than 181,000 active addresses. This growth coincides with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s endorsement of Avalanche for publishing real gross domestic product (GDP) data. However, analysts caution against attributing this growth solely to governmental adoption, indicating that decentralized finance (DeFi) traders and mining bots have predominantly driven the increase.
Decentralized lending protocols are also gaining traction, with a reported increase of over 72% year-to-date (YTD), climbing from $53 billion at the beginning of 2025 to more than $127 billion in total value locked as of Wednesday. This growth is largely attributed to the rising institutional adoption of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. Binance Research has noted that protocols like Maple Finance and Euler have experienced dramatic increases in value, reflecting the broader trend of integrating traditional financial assets into decentralized platforms.
Moreover, Mantle Network is positioning itself as a key player in the tokenized asset space, with a new phase called Mantle 2.0. This transition aims to bridge the gap between centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), further enhancing liquidity and user engagement in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
In a recent incident, the Venus Protocol successfully aided a user in recovering $13.5 million in crypto assets stolen through a phishing attack linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. By pausing its platform and conducting thorough audits, Venus was able to safeguard its users and recover stolen funds, illustrating the importance of security measures in the DeFi space.
As of this week, most of the top 100 cryptocurrencies have shown positive performance, with the meme token MemeCore (M) leading the pack with a remarkable 236% rise. Investors and enthusiasts alike are encouraged to stay informed about these rapidly evolving developments in the crypto space.
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