Sam Altman’s World Foundation sells $65M in WLD as token hits new lows

Sam Altman’s World Foundation has raised $65 million through an over-the-counter (OTC) sale of its WLD token, which has hit new record lows.

In a Saturday post on X, the foundation said its token issuance arm, World Assets, completed the sale to four counterparties over the past week, with the first tranche settling on March 20. The transactions were priced at an average of roughly $0.27 per token, suggesting that around 239 million Worldcoin (WLD) changed hands.

“This sale funds the project’s core operations and activities, R&D, orb manufacturing, ecosystem development, and more,” World Foundation wrote on X.  

Of the total, $25 million worth of tokens are subject to a six-month lockup, while the remainder were immediately liquid.

Related: World launches AgentKit with Coinbase integration to enable human-verified AI agents

WLD hits new low

Following the announcement, WLD briefly fell to an all-time low of around $0.24 before recovering to $0.27, leaving it down about 97% from its March 2024 peak near $11.82. The token is currently trading at $0.2725, up by 0.28% over the past day, according to data by CoinMarketCap.

Additional supply pressure may be on the horizon. A major community token unlock is scheduled for July 23, covering roughly 52.5% of the token’s 10 billion total supply, according to DefiLlama.

Meanwhile, the new sale also comes at a steep discount to prior rounds. In May last year, World raised $135 million at approximately $1.13 per token from backers including Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto.

Related: Tools for Humanity expands World app toward super-app model

Thailand raids World-linked iris scanning site

In October last year, authorities in Thailand raided an iris-scanning site linked to World. The country’s Securities and Exchange Commission, working with the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, said the service may have violated digital asset laws by operating without a license, leading to arrests and an ongoing investigation.

The move added to a growing list of regulatory challenges for World. Since launching in 2023, the project has faced probes and pushback in several countries, including Indonesia, Germany, Kenya and Brazil, with concerns ranging from licensing issues to the handling of sensitive biometric data.

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