World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token officially launched on September 1st, with claims opening at 8:00 am ET. The event quickly overwhelmed Ethereum’s network, sending gas fees above 100 gwei – the highest level in 2025 so far. Users rushed to claim tokens through the Lockbox system, which had been introduced in late August to allow early presale participants to unlock 20% of their WLFI allocation.
Activity shifted to decentralized exchanges before centralized listings went live. Uniswap v3 saw over $20 million in WLFI trading volume within the first hour. At peak congestion, gas costs to claim WLFI exceeded $100.
Read also: WLFI Token Set to Enter Trading Phase After 99.94% Community Vote
Token Distribution and Exchange Listings
WLFI began trading on major exchanges, including Binance and OKX, shortly after the claims window opened. The token launched with an initial circulating supply of approximately 24.6 billion out of a 100 billion total.
Allocations include 10 billion for World Liberty Financial, 7.78 billion for Alt5 Sigma’s treasury, 2.8 billion for liquidity and marketing, and 4 billion for public sale participants. The remaining supply remains locked under a vesting schedule.
WLFI was priced around $0.30 on launch, giving it a theoretical fully diluted valuation above $30 billion. Early buyers from presale rounds at $0.015 and $0.05 saw substantial paper gains.
Read also: How to recognize a crypto presale scam? Full guide
Post-Launch Activity and Buyback
World Liberty Financial conducted a $2 million buyback of WLFI tokens from the open market shortly after launch. The average buyback price was reported at $0.308 per token, covering approximately 6.5 million tokens.
The WLFI token became Ethereum’s most-used smart contract during the launch, briefly topping Etherscan’s Gas Guzzlers list. Over 129 ETH in gas was burned within hours of the release. Network activity returned to lower levels by midday, with gas fees dropping back to around 8 gwei.
WLFI and USD1 Ecosystem Plans
WLFI serves as the governance token for World Liberty Financial, which plans to roll out features such as lending, voting, and DeFi integrations. The project also operates USD1, a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin with a reported $2.6 billion market cap. USD1 is deployed across Ethereum, Solana, Tron, and BNB Chain.
WLFI’s launch follows earlier perpetual futures trading on Bybit and Binance. Centralized and decentralized trading is now live across multiple platforms, and the team has indicated that governance proposals will soon be introduced to determine future unlocks and usage parameters.
