Catizen (CATI) perpetual futures launches on Coinbase International

Catizen (CATI) perpetual futures are live on Coinbase International. The new tool allows for no-expiration betting on the price direction of CATI. 

Catizen (CATI) launched its perpetual futures market on Coinbase International. The new market will add to the existing spot and perpetual futures pairs on other major exchanges. CATI is already more active on perpetual futures markets, with Binance’s pairing reaching $296M in daily volumes. Spot trading on the exchange remains lower at $71M. Overall CATI trading volumes reached $237M in 24 hours. 

CATI already has an active perpetual and spot market on Binance, making up the bulk of the volumes. The perpetual futures listing on Coinbase International is a cautious move, with no guarantee of a full CATI spot listing. 

Just before the full launch, the CATI market started in halt mode, to test the initial behavior of the trading pair. 

The market launches during a volatile time for CATI, just days after the token completed its airdrop and went live. CATI listings followed soon after the airdrop, while the asset is still in its price discovery stage. CATI is entering active trading and bets on achieving a new breakout. 

For the short term, CATI is expected to shed more of its value before bouncing. However, the asset is still not aggressively shorted. CATI caused $1.42M in liquidations in the past 24 hours, of which more than $1.10M affected short positions. 

CATI received immediate listings on most of the major centralized exchanges. Unlike TON, CATI launched Binance trading in the first minutes of releasing the airdrop tokens. Initially, CATI started out with Binance Lanchpool, which distributed some of the tokens in exchange for BNB and FDUSD staking. The approach was similar to other newly listed Binance assets, aiming to popularize new tokens while finding utility for Binance’s own tokens. 

Catizen opens path for more Toncoin airdrops

The Catizen game airdrop preceded that of Hamster Kombat by a few days, and created few problems with network overload. However, CATI recipients complained of getting fewer tokens than expected. CATI launched the airdrop with a price of $1, but slid to a lower range. 

CATI has more than 1.3M eligible holders on-chain, based on Toncoin addresses . The wide distribution may also cause selling pressure in the early weeks after the airdrop.

After reaching a peak of $1.11, CATI slid to $0.72. The price trend, however, has not created an inflow of short positions. Instead, CATI is still predominantly longed by traders. Open interest grew from zero to above $70M in the past week, with spot trading also gaining speed. 

The Catizen airdrop is seen as less successful compared to Dogs, due to the less generous distribution. The Catizen game also drew in more than 500K unique daily users in the day before the airdrop deadline. 

The problem with Catizen is that user count crashed just days after the airdrop. Catizen lost up to 90% of its players from the peak, with around 65K active daily wallets. 

The biggest problem with the Catizen airdrop was the seemingly random token allocation. Not all token drops matched the player’s level, as promised previously. 

Catizen called out for unfair airdrop

Catizen only distributed 15% of its token supply in the first airdrop stage. The original announcement predicted a 43% single-event airdrop. Players now have to continue with a new season pass in order to gain access to the next airdrop stage. 

A new airdrop season raises even more questions about the fairness of the CATI token distribution. Another inflow of new tokens could also pressure the CATI market price. 

The Catizen game stands out among Toncoin and Telegram mini-apps. Catizen goes beyond the tap-to-earn model, instead offering a virtual experience of running a cat cafe. Catizen aimed to achieve success similar to Web2 idle games. All activities and missions were tied to the game level and the leaderboards. 

At the same time, Hamster Kombat had more tedious daily missions. After the token launch and price discovery, airdrop recipients were also disappointed by some of the allocations. Catizen was viewed as the more successful example of a token distribution, due to having a full gaming experience. 

Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva.