World Raises $65 Million OTC in Bear Market, Gearing Up for a Big Move?

Original Author: Ma He, Foresight News

On March 28, the World Foundation announced the completion of a $65 million OTC sale of WLD tokens at an average price of $0.2719. This transaction involved four counterparties, with the first settlement completed on March 20, 2026. $25 million worth of WLD tokens from this sale are subject to a 6-month lock-up period. The foundation stated that the proceeds will be directly used for core project operations, R&D investment, Orb hardware manufacturing, and ecosystem development. All settlements were executed through the multi-signature address 0xE797 controlled by World Assets.

In the current deep bear market, completing a token transaction worth tens of millions of dollars is quite rare. The last major token financing by the World Foundation dates back to May 2025, when its subsidiary World Assets sold $135 million worth of WLD tokens at market price to early supporters a16z and Bain Capital Crypto.

Looking back at WLD's complete price action during this cycle, it serves as a textbook case of moving from hype to reality. Worldcoin (now renamed World) officially launched WLD in July 2023. Backed by Sam Altman's personal endorsement, the AI large model hype, and the unique narrative of "Proof of Unique Personhood," it quickly became a market focus.

In March 2024, resonating with the Bitcoin halving cycle and the AI narrative, WLD's price skyrocketed within a single month, reaching an all-time high of approximately $11.8. Its market capitalization once approached $10 billion. That year, global enthusiasm for registering World IDs via Orb iris scans was unprecedented, and the project was seen as the top contender for Web3 identity infrastructure.

However, the spotlight faded quickly. In the second half of 2024, with the overall crypto market correction, strict scrutiny of biometric data by regulators like the EU, and the emergence of significant project unlock pressures, WLD's price began a cliff-like decline.

Throughout 2025, WLD's price fluctuated repeatedly within the $0.5-$1.5 range. Although iris adoption growth progressed steadily, it fell far short of early expectations, showing a clear disconnect between user growth and narrative hype. Entering 2026, WLD continued to seek a bottom, recently touching a new low of $0.2433. It is currently hovering around $0.27, representing a cumulative drop of over 97% from its ATH.

This cycle, WLD's price trajectory resembles the typical three-act play for most altcoins: narrative-driven → supply pressure → real-world test. Early premiums came mainly from the Altman IP and the AI trend, while later stages were suppressed by continuous unlocks and macro tightening.

Interestingly, just before announcing this large OTC sale, on March 25, World's official website released a research paper titled "Private Proof of Human: Critical Infrastructure for Humanity in a World with Advanced AI." The paper directly addresses the core pain point of the AI agent era: how to establish reliable, privacy-preserving "Proof of Human" infrastructure in a digital world flooded with machines.

The paper details a technical solution combining Orb iris-scanning hardware with Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP). This solution can efficiently verify unique personhood while completely avoiding the leakage of personal biometric data, offering greater foresight and security compared to traditional facial recognition or passport verification. This scheme is positioned as the future foundation of internet trust, effectively combating deepfakes and AI bot attacks.

On March 26, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen reposted this paper on platform X with a brief yet weighty comment: "Time to prove human."

In the current era where AI is reshaping productivity, Proof of Human (PoH) will become a necessity for distinguishing humans from machines and rebuilding the trust layer of the digital economy.

On March 17, World launched AgentKit. Its working principle involves an Agent completing registration by proving its World ID, linking a wallet to an anonymous human identity. The agent signs a standard identity verification challenge at a protected endpoint, and the agent's signature is matched with its associated human identity. Upon successful matching, access is granted. In its application scenarios, the official stated that AgentKit agents can also be used for privacy protection, ticketing systems, access frequency limiting, and preventing Sybil attacks.

On April 17, World will host the "Lift Off" World ID global launch event in San Francisco. Sam Altman will personally attend and co-host with World CEO Alex.

The event's theme focuses on the latest progress of World ID, Orb hardware iterations, and application scenarios for human verification in the AI era. Altman's presence itself is a symbol of top-tier attention and confidence, and may also signal potential synergy between OpenAI and World — AI agents need authentic human identity endorsement, and World ID provides a decentralized solution.

Currently, WLD's market capitalization is $1.346 billion, with a Fully Diluted Valuation (FDV) of $2.758 billion. The percentage of tokens already unlocked is 48.80%.

Furthermore, WLD continues to unlock 0.05% of its maximum supply daily, approximately 5.32 million tokens, worth about $1.479 million. Calculated at this rate, the value of tokens unlocked monthly is approximately $44.369 million, which is expected to continue exerting significant selling pressure on the market.