Sam Altman’s World Foundation has sold $65 million worth of Worldcoin (WLD), and the timing raises eyebrows. World Foundation, the digital identity project co-founded by Sam Altman, offloaded the tokens via private deals, allowing a fresh glimpse into how the project is funding itself amid a prolonged price slump.
Worldcoin sells 226.43 million WLD; why does this matter?
In the past 9 days, 226.43 million WLD tokens were sold via over-the-counter (OTC), totaling $65 million, meaning the tokens were exchanged for $65 million in USDC stablecoins. OTC is a trade that happens directly between parties and not on a public exchange.
As the WLD token trade happened via an OTC deal, buyers do not pay in WLD; instead, they opt for stablecoins or fiat currencies via banking rails.
On the surface, this token sale may appear to be a controlled and strategic move. But zoom out a little, and things become slightly complicated. Because the sale comes at a time when WLD is trading below its earlier high, that’s the catch point here, and that’s why this news matters.
On top of that, Worldcoin has been sold via platforms such as Wintermute and Flow Traders; however, this time, the company sold coins via OTC, that too in one go. This aspect also makes the move impactful.
As WLD has previously gained significant momentum and capital, selling the tokens at these low levels signals urgency more than confidence. However, the proceeds, or the money received after the token sale, are not sitting idle.
The funds will reportedly be used to support Worldcoin’s current operations, infrastructure, and network scaling, including the Orb devices, a biometric identity verification by World Foundation.  Â
This aligns well with what many experts suspected: Sam Altman’s World Foundation is proving to be a capital-heavy project.
Worldcoin’s OTC deals are not a quiet move
In fact, the use of OTC deals is not accidental. If Worldcoin tokens were sold on open exchanges, it would trigger the price of the token, especially for the assets already under pressure. World Foundation chose OTC to avoid market disruptions.
However, using OTC does not mean the price is not impacted at all. When a crypto project sells a token, some of them are included in partial lockups, i.e., not all tokens will immediately hit the market. As such, these tokens, when gradually released, will add to the future supply and potentially hit the price.
Institutional interest in WLD tokens
World Foundation has not disclosed counterparties in its over-the-counter deal, possibly due to privacy agreements, and to avoid market speculations. Usually, deals include crypto institutions like venture capital and large crypto investment companies, and market makers as counterparties. In the case of the WLD sale, the amount is huge, which means the firm might have sold to big institutional participants.
Taken in isolation, OTC deals with WLD tokens are a usual move; however, a combination of factors like a weak price environment, ongoing infrastructure costs, a wave of token unlocks, and limited transparency regarding who bought the tokens paints a picture that the project is not making enough revenue to sustain itself independently.
That means the project sold the tokens to support its products and overall growth. At the time of reporting, WLD was trading at $0.28, reflecting a 22.8% decline over the past month.
