Worldcoin’s token, WLD, has surged by more than 40% on Thursday alone, marking an over 300% increase in the past month. This surge has propelled the token to its highest price ever, reaching $8.86 and achieving a total market cap of $1 billion based on circulating supply.
The recent price increase is attributed to the debut of Sora, an AI model capable of transforming text into video, on February 16. While Sora is not directly related to Worldcoin’s mission of verifying human identity through eyeball-scanning orbs, it is backed by Tools of Humanity. The latter is a company co-founded by Sam Altman, who is also the CEO of OpenAI, the creator of Sora and the renowned AI chatbot ChatGPT. Some traders are treating WLD as a proxy for OpenAI, which is not publicly traded.
Despite the surge in price, it is unclear whether it is driven by euphoria or fundamentals. Tiago Sada, Tools for Humanity’s head of product, engineering & design, hinted at important news to come, stating, “We’re super excited about a couple of other major announcements that we have coming up.”
Worldcoin also saw significant growth in total signups, surpassing 3.5 million, up from 2.5 million at the beginning of the year. The project allocates tokens to individuals who have their irises scanned by the project’s orbs to prove their “personhood.” Worldcoin created over 600,000 new accounts in the past seven days alone.
“The growing interest in World App and World ID is incredible,” the project announced on X. “Use World App to locate and book an appointment to verify your World ID in Spain and Portugal. New locations coming soon.”
The expansion of Worldcoin’s iris-scanning technology comes amid a broader effort to increase its global presence. As of now, the verification locations are available in 11 countries, including the United States. However, the project has faced challenges in some regions. For instance, authorities in Kenya suspended Worldcoin operations due to privacy concerns.
Worldcoin started its identity verification process in 2021, and by the official launch in July 2023, over two million people had signed up. The company claims that more than five million people have created accounts using their identity, which is about 0.06% of the world’s population.
Sam Altman, the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, is the creator of Worldcoin. He faced a brief dismissal from his position at OpenAI in November, which led to resignations in protest by his colleagues. Altman was reinstated 12 days later.
