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The Evolution of Point Markets: Reshaping Crypto Investments with Pre-TGE Trading
Understanding Point Markets: Transparent and Blockchain-Linked Trading
Point markets represent a pivotal innovation in the cryptocurrency space, allowing early-stage investment through pre-token issuance points. These points, earned through community participation, testnets, or transactions, are stored in the internal database of token projects rather than on-chain wallets. Trading mechanisms facilitate transactions while retaining off-chain ownership, verified through blockchain-stored records. This dual-layered system combines transparency with flexibility, ensuring point ownership is authenticated at the Token Generation Event (TGE).
Shifting from Rewards to Investments: The Rise of Lighter Point Trading
The landscape of crypto investment began a seismic shift in October 2025 when Lighter Points traded at nearly $100 each on point market platforms. Traditionally, early-stage participation in crypto projects revolved around earning airdrop rewards, but point markets introduced immediate liquidity for these pre-token assets. Platforms such as Whales Market and SOTC enable users to trade these points, bypassing the lengthy waiting periods associated with conventional token issuance. This trend reflects the growing importance of point markets as strategic investment tools.
Despite their limited on-chain presence prior to TGE, points are transferable externally through pre-negotiated agreements between token projects and these platforms. This evolution fundamentally enhances the value proposition of rewards programs, transforming points into tradeable assets indicative of project potential.
Mechanics of Point Trading: Decoding Functionality
Step 1: Earning and Storing Points
Users earn points by contributing to projects through testnets, community engagements, or transaction execution. Unlike tokens that are held in blockchain-based wallets, points remain in a project’s internal database, accessible through partnerships with platforms like Whales Market.
Step 2: Trading Points
Listing Points for Sale
To trade points, users connect their wallets to Whales Market, list their earned points, and establish visibility within the platform. This transparency allows buyers to view available listings and execute transactions seamlessly.
Ownership Transfer Through Smart Contracts
Once buyers make payments, smart contracts facilitate ownership transfers, updating the project database to reflect the new owner. These transactions do not initiate on-chain movement but create blockchain records to validate trades.
Record Verification
A two-tier system ensures secure and verifiable trading. Blockchain records provide cryptographic evidence, while Whales Market maintains off-chain transaction logs within the project’s database. This combination ensures both trust and compliance across all trades.
Step 3: Token Conversion at TGE
At the Token Generation Event, points convert into tokens using claim portals or airdrop systems. Accurate allocation is ensured through verification processes that cross-validate blockchain records and internal transaction logs. Users who traded points prior to TGE receive tokens proportional to their credited holdings.
Leading Point Market Platforms: A Closer Look
Whales Market: The Decentralized Powerhouse
Whales Market has emerged as the go-to platform for point trading in the crypto ecosystem. Prominent projects such as Hyperliquid, Friend.tech, and Blast have partnered with Whales Market to leverage its robust infrastructure. The platform’s peer-to-peer order structure allows users to seamlessly list and purchase points, driven solely by market dynamics without centralized pricing mechanisms.
Key features like smart contract-based escrow systems ensure all transactions remain trustless—securely locking payments and points until trade fulfillment. Most participants on Whales Market are small-scale investors managing portfolios averaging $3,000, contributing to a diverse, decentralized trading environment. Despite success, concerns regarding price volatility of Whales Market’s native token persist, demanding greater transparency from participants and projects alike.
SOTC: The RFQ-Driven Approach
SOTC offers a contrasting trading model by utilizing communication channels like Telegram and X (formerly Twitter) as platforms for point listings. Lighter Points became especially prominent when reports indicated trading prices around $95-$100 per point, marking a significant milestone. However, transparency challenges accompany SOTC’s structure, as data lacks independent verification.
Employing a Request-for-Quote (RFQ) mechanism, trades occur via intermediaries responsible for matching buyers and sellers. Multi-signature (2 of 3) escrow agreements secure transactions but introduce risks stemming from centralized control over trade information. These challenges underscore the reliance on intermediaries, creating opportunities for collusion or monopolization that may compromise market credibility.
Why Point Markets Matter: Early Insights into Project Performance
Point markets provide unique advantages as a pre-TGE investment ecosystem. Unlike other mechanisms like Pendle’s PT/YT framework or token pre-markets, point markets serve as ultra-early indicators of project success.
Pendle and similar systems rely on concrete project roadmaps before initiating trading opportunities. Meanwhile, point markets capitalize on community participation data, offering investors hyper-responsive metrics sensitive to early traction. They transform intangible project engagement into measurable assets, actively bridging token project ecosystems with external market dynamics.
In this way, point markets redefine the timeline for investment strategies. By offering pre-token liquidity tied to project performance, they create unprecedented opportunities for institutional and retail investors to establish footholds well before TGE.
Navigating Challenges and Maximizing Opportunities
Point markets, while innovative, face considerable hurdles. First, their scalability remains restricted by operational reliance on project-partnered platforms like Whales Market and SOTC. Operational inefficiencies or external execution failures could irreparably damage a project’s reputation.
Liquidity constraints also pose challenges for seamless trading experiences, limiting appeal to larger investors seeking diversified portfolios. Platform developers shoulder the responsibility of maintaining market integrity while pursuing scalability.
Nonetheless, point markets unlock transformative investment possibilities, offering early-stage projects visibility and financial support crucial to success. By providing transparent access to indicative data on project performance, they strengthen the investment ecosystem's responsiveness and adaptability.
As point markets evolve, they promise to reshape crypto investment dynamics. For early adopters, they offer strategic entry points into projects before tokens even exist. For projects, they represent direct pathways to gauge success through pre-TGE community participation—a game-changing intersection of decentralized finance and market innovation.
This analysis is provided by Tiger Research, a leading authority in Web3 insights, as part of the '25Q4 Bitcoin Valuation Report.' Explore our comprehensive reports at Tiger Research’s official website.
