According to a new analysis from data provider Amberdata, World Liberty Financial Token (WLFI), a DeFi governance token affiliated with the Trump family, may have signaled a major market breakdown hours before Bitcoin’s move.
THE report looks at business activity on October 10, 2025, when approximately $6.93 billion in Leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in less than an hour. Bitcoin (BTC) fell around 15% and Ether (ETH) around 20%, while smaller tokens lost up to 70%.
Amberdata found that WLFI began a sharp decline more than five hours before the broader market downturn. At the time, Bitcoin was still trading near $121,000 and showing little immediate stress.
“It’s hard to dismiss a five-hour delay as a coincidence,” Mike Marshall, author of the report, told Cointelegraph. “This duration is what differentiates a truly actionable warning from a statistical artifact,” he added.
Related: Senators ask Bessent to investigate UAE’s $500 million stake in Trump-linked WLFI
WLFI anomalies before the massive sell-off
Researchers analyzed three unusual patterns, including increased trading activity, strong divergence from Bitcoin, and extreme leverage, to determine whether WLFI signaled stress ahead of the market sell-off.
WLFI’s hourly volume jumped to about 474 million, or about 21.7 times its normal level, within minutes of the rate-related political news. Meanwhile, funding rates on WLFI perpetual futures have reached around 2.87% every eight hours, equating to an annualized borrowing cost close to 131%.
The study does not claim that insider trading took place. Instead, he argues that the way crypto markets are structured can give certain assets greater importance than their size suggests.
WLFI’s holder base is concentrated among politically connected participants, the report said, in contrast to Bitcoin’s widely distributed ownership. Marshall said the business model appeared “instrument-specific,” meaning activity was focused on WLFI rather than the broader crypto complex.
“If this were higher quality analysis (informed participants reading tariff headlines more quickly and drawing better conclusions), one would expect to see this reflected more broadly,” he said. “What we really saw was concentrated activity in WLFI first.”
The timing is remarkable. Trading volume accelerated about three minutes after the tariffs were publicly announced. Marshall said such speed suggests prepared execution rather than retail traders interpreting headlines in real time.
The connection between WLFI and the broader market decline comes down to leverage. Many crypto trading platforms allow traders to use multiple assets as collateral for borrowed positions. When the WLFI fell sharply, the value of this collateral plummeted, forcing traders to sell liquid assets like Bitcoin and Ether to cover their positions. These sales pushed prices down and triggered further liquidations in the market.
Related: Trump family’s WLFI plans foreign exchange and remittance platform: report
WLFI reacted faster than Bitcoin to stress
Data from Amberdata shows that WLFI’s realized volatility reached nearly eight times that of Bitcoin during the episode, making it particularly susceptible to stress. Researchers argue that structurally fragile and highly leveraged assets can move first during market shocks.
Marshall said the results should not be interpreted as evidence that WLFI can reliably predict slowdowns. The analysis covers a single event and more data would be needed to establish statistical consistency. He nevertheless believes that this behavior is significant.
“So the useful life of this signal is limited. It’s valuable now because it’s under-monitored,” he said. “As soon as it becomes consensus, the alpha is arbitraged away. This is how all market signals work. The ones that persist are the ones that no one pays attention to.”
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