ETHFI token’s strong start fades with over 20% drop post-debut

Ether.Fi, known for its liquid restaking protocol, has officially launched its governance token, ETHFI, starting at an opening price of $4.13. This follows the token’s distribution through an airdrop and a Binance Launchpad round. 

Despite the initial interest, ETHFI saw a decline of over 20%, with its current trading price at $3.41 on Binance at the time of writing. In the early trading phase, the token achieved a volume of more than $118 million within just 45 minutes.

ETHFI’s fully diluted value (FDV) has reached $3.6 billion, suggesting the market’s valuation with the total supply in circulation. The token’s launch involved significant participation, with over $2 billion in FDUSD stablecoin and 17.3 million BNB, equivalent to $10 billion, staked on the Binance Launchpad. Participants in this Launchpad received ETHFI allocations proportional to their staking contributions.

The token’s maximum supply is limited to one billion, with 20 million designated for the Binance Launchpad and 60 million reserved for the initial airdrop phase, which concluded on March 15. A subsequent distribution of 50 million tokens is planned for the upcoming “season two.” The distribution plan outlines that investors will get 32.5% of the total supply over two years, and core contributors are allocated 23.26% over three years, setting the initial circulating supply at 115.2 million tokens.

Parallel to the token’s release, Ether.Fi’s Total Value Locked (TVL) has seen a substantial increase of 117% over the past month, with deposits nearing $3 billion, as reported by DefiLlama. The protocol offers a restaking mechanism for ether (ETH) stakeholders to earn additional yield through a liquid restaking token (LRT), which can be utilized in various protocols, alongside earning loyalty points for token airdrops.