A major token opening scheduled for late July could make matters worse.
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Thai authorities raided an iris scanning facility linked to Sam Altman’s World project last October. That was enough trouble.
Now the foundation behind the biometric identity platform is selling its token for a fraction of what investors paid less than a year ago – and the market is not taking it well.
The World Foundation disclosed on Saturday that its token issuance arm, World Assets, has completed WLD’s sale of $65 million worth of tokens, which were distributed to four buyers last week.
The first batch was settled on March 20. Based on an estimated selling price of $0.27 per token, the deal involved approximately 239 million WLD changing hands.
76% Off Last Year’s Sale Price
The numbers tell the story. In May 2024, World raised $135 million at about $1.13 per token from backers including Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto.
1/ World Assets, Ltd. has now closed a series of OTC sales for a total of $65,000,000 with four partners this past week, the first of which was settled on March 20, 2026.
– The World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
This latest sale went out the door at $0.27 – a 76% drop from that round. The foundation said the proceeds will fund core operations, research and development, orb production, and ecosystem work.
2/ Sales were made at an average price of ~$0.2719/WLD. $25,000,000 worth of tokens sold are subject to a 6-month lockup period.
– The World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
Not all tokens sold are locked. Of the entire $65 million, only $25 million carries a six-month closing period. Some were immediately available for trading, meaning buyers could move those tokens to the open market instantly.
3/ This sale pays for the core activities of the project, R&D, orb production, ecosystem development, etc.
– The World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
WLD briefly touched an all-time low of $0.24 after the sale was announced before retreating to $0.27. At that price, the token remains about 97% below the $11.82 peak recorded in March 2024.
According to Coingecko data, WLD was trading at $0.2725 as of the latest reading, up just 0.27% in the last 24 hours.
Another Wave of Supply Approaches
The pain may not be over. Data from DefiLlama shows the largest public token launch is set for July 23, comprising about 52% of WLD’s total of 10 billion tokens. That kind of release usually adds selling pressure – and comes at a time when the token is close to an all-time low.
Global regulatory issues have also followed the project across borders. Authorities in Indonesia have suspended World ID registration due to compliance issues. Brazil has banned the operation of this eye scanning platform. Germany opened its own investigation. Kenya has pushed back hard on data privacy concerns.
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Regulating Heat Continues to Build
The Thai raid added another entry to that list. Officials there, who work with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, said the iris scanning service may be operating without the required license. People have been arrested and the investigation is still open.
Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView
