Filecoin Settles Near $40 After Wild Opening Day of Trading

Filecoin FIL$1.4793 speculators endured a wild opening day of trading as the highly anticipated token soared and dived across all markets, finally settling around $40 Friday evening.

• Trading started at 18:25 UTC Thursday for most markets; within the first four hours, filecoins and filecoin futures contracts traded at prices between $37 and $100, according to pricing data from TradingView.
• Futures for the new token are trading in heavy backwardation on FTX, the largest filecoin futures market. Filecoin futures were trading hands around $15 on FTX at last check compared to $39.50 on Binance’s spot market, representing a basis of 160 percent, according to CoinGecko.
• The protocol’s initial coin offering in July 2017 sold tokens to investors at a range of $1 to $5 with six-month to three-year vesting schedules, according to data from Messari. At current prices, early investors have earned between 700% and 3,900% returns over the past three years.
• Filecoin’s remarkable early price action evoked a range of reactions from investors and market analysts.
• After an erratic first few hours of trading, the futures backwardation seems to imply the market “pricing in future inflation” for filecoin’s supply, said Eric Turner, director of research at Messari, in a private message with CoinDesk.
• Filecoin Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFTs) with 6-month vesting schedules were priced between $18 and $19 right before trading officially launched, Turner noted.
• Taking to Twitter, Multicoin Capital Managing Partner Kyle Samani called early filecoin trading “one of the most memorable market dislocations in the history of crypto.”