Original Author: THOR, HYPHIN

Original Translation: Luffy, Foresight News

Speculation is the lifeblood of the cryptocurrency market, and savvy opportunists often find new ways to bet on assets. In most cases, people invest in existing things because there is data that allows people to make informed decisions. However, recent market trends indicate an increase in airdrop distribution and trading volume of unreleased assets.

Introduction

The surge in pre-market trading interest is largely attributed to numerous airdrop activities and highly anticipated projects hoping to launch their tokens into the public market amidst a booming market and positive sentiments.

With all the necessary catalysts in place for a new narrative, protocols like Aevo, Hyperliquid, and Whales Market have taken this opportunity by offering perpetual futures for tokens that have yet to be released.

Pre-market trading volume for Aevo, Whales Market, and Hyperliquid

Please note that these tools are highly volatile and should be used with caution as their liquidity is suspect and determining fair value of their underlying assets is extremely challenging.

Given the highly speculative and risky nature of the financial products mentioned earlier, what value and opportunities do they present to traders? We will attempt to find answers by analyzing market data in this article.

Pre-launch market for Aevo

Historical Performance

With the help of exchange APIs and historical data, we can observe the price performance of all assets that have ever traded in the pre-market and understand their performance after official launch.

Comparison of asset prices before and after protocol launches

The most common pattern for such assets is that trading volume is relatively low after listing, and volatility and trading volume peak as the release date approaches, after which activity begins to decrease.

Objectively speaking, the initial listing prices of each asset in the table are not their price peaks. Airdropped tokens have performed exceptionally well in the past six months, although it is commonly believed that airdropped tokens will have a major impact on prices once tradable.

However, this does not mean that one should immediately buy the asset once it is listed in the pre-market. Price fluctuations can lead to liquidation of positions, and returns are not guaranteed due to unknown listing standards.

In terms of trading volume, it is evident that assets that are sought after, rather than assets that circulate on Twitter only because of their incentive measures, have received more attention compared to other upcoming tokens, with most tokens having a daily trading volume of less than $100,000.

JUP's share of trading volume in different pre-markets

As for Jupiter, after being speculated during the expansion of Solana for a while, they gained the spotlight by absorbing a large amount of liquidity.

Current pre-launch market

Looking back at historical data, let's take a look at the current opportunities. As of today, there are a large number of unreleased tokens available for trading on Aevo and Hyperliquid.

Currently active pre-launch assets on Aevo and Hyperliquid

Apart from the recently listed Parcel and Portal, not much active trading is happening. Based on price performance, most tokens are doing well, with a few experiencing several-fold increases in value over the past few months.

Let's select some interesting projects from the list and see if we can determine if their valuations are comparable to similar protocols:

Wormhole (W) 

Wormhole's FDV is derived by multiplying the W/USD token price on Hyperliquid by the total token supply (10 billion)

Compared to alternative solutions in the market, Wormhole's current theoretical valuation may be overestimated. Unless groundbreaking progress is announced, the token price may decline after the token generation event, as trading volume reflects low investor interest.

BLAST

Blast's FDV is derived by multiplying the BLAST-USD token price on Aevo by the total supply (1 billion)

Although speculative nature makes FDV subject to billions of dollars in fluctuations, the TVL metric indicates a significant interest in the Blast ecosystem (likely due to airdrop expectations).

From the perspective of L2 pricing, Blast currently seems undervalued on paper, but more information needs to be considered in attempting to draw clear conclusions. Unfortunately, apart from TVL, there is little information about its on-chain status, which makes the evaluation process difficult.

Token Trading

Whales Market Token Trading

Tokens can now be traded on the decentralized over-the-counter platform Whales Market.

"2024 will be the 'golden year' of airdrops" - @CC 2 Ventures

One of the most prolific airdrop farmers in the crypto space says that being an airdrop farmer has never been as profitable as it is now. The sheer number of protocols announcing token plans has brought us to a point of user interaction monetization, and incentives are necessary if you want to gain attention as a project.

It's only natural for a market to emerge for these tokens. Such channels allow airdrop farmers to cash out their harvest in advance.

So far, Whales Market has facilitated $6.3 million worth of peer-to-peer token trading, and it is poised for further growth as more quotes come online.

Currently, there are 9 protocols available for token trading on the platform: Parcl, Kamino, Ethena, Magic Eden, Hyperliquid, EigenLayer, friend.tech, and ether.fi. In the near future, Marginfi, Drift, and Blast should also go live.

Here is an overview of the most popular token trading:

Looking at the average order price and the order price median, it is clear that in some cases, the price distribution is not concentrated.

So far, the fair value of some of these tokens seems to have been determined, but what does the value of tokens actually mean?

The price of one point may imply the current estimated value of the upcoming agreement in the market. As more points are issued, their price may decrease due to reward dilution unless market sentiment changes and expected valuation increases.

Let's take EigenLayer as an example to test this idea.

Price per point = 0.155 Total points = 1,963,113,523 Airdrop value = Price per point * Total points = 304,282,596 
(Theoretical) Airdrop allocation = 0.1 (10% ) Fully diluted value = Airdrop value / Airdrop allocation = 3,042,825,960 

Since the snapshot date is usually kept strictly confidential, we cannot determine the final total number of points that will be generated.

Conclusion

Through historical observation and considering frequent trading patterns, these pre-market assets typically perform well even after going online, with peaks usually occurring on the day of token release. Aevo, Hyperliquid, and Whales Market protocols provide users with another way to bet on airdrops.