Sam Altman’s World Foundation sold about $65 million worth of its WLD token through an over-the-counter placement as the token hit fresh lows. The foundation said its token issuance arm, World Assets, sold WLD to four counterparties over the past week, with the first tranche settling on March 20. The deals were priced at an average near $0.27 per token, implying roughly 239 million WLD changed hands.
The foundation said the proceeds will support core operations, R&D, orb manufacturing, ecosystem development and other activities. Of the proceeds, $25 million of tokens are subject to a six-month lockup; the rest were immediately liquid.
WLD briefly dropped to an all-time low near $0.24 after the sale was announced, then recovered to around $0.27, leaving the token down roughly 97% from its March 2024 peak near $11.82. CoinMarketCap showed WLD trading near $0.2725, a slight gain from the prior day.
Further supply pressure could arrive later in the summer: a large community token unlock scheduled for July 23 could cover about 52.5% of total supply, according to DefiLlama, though not all unlocked tokens are expected to hit the market immediately. The latest sale was at a steep discount to prior fundraising; in May last year World raised $135 million at about $1.13 per token from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto.
The transaction comes as World faces regulatory and operational headwinds. In October, Thai authorities raided an iris-scanning site linked to World after the country’s SEC and the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau said the service may have operated without a license, triggering arrests and an inquiry. Since its 2023 launch, World has encountered probes and pushback in multiple countries, including Indonesia, Germany, Kenya and Brazil, with concerns focused on licensing and the handling of sensitive biometric data.
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