A massive token unlock scheduled for the end of July could make matters worse.
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Thai authorities last October raided an iris scanning site linked to Sam Altman’s World project. That was difficult enough.
Now the foundation behind the biometric identity platform is selling its own token for a fraction of what investors paid less than a year ago – and the market is not taking this well.
World Foundation revealed On Saturday, the token issuance arm, World Assets, completed an over-the-counter sale of WLD tokens worth $65 million across four buyers over the past week.
The first batch was processed on March 20. Based on an average sales price of approximately $0.27 per token, the deal was for approximately $239 million. WLD alternating hands.
A decrease of 76% compared to last year’s deal price
The numbers tell the story. In May 2024, World raised $135 million at around $1.13 per token from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto.
1/ World Assets, Ltd. has now concluded a series of OTC sales this past week with four counterparties totaling $65,000,000, the first of which settled on March 20, 2026.
— World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
This latest sale went out at $0.27 – a 76% drop from that round. The foundation said proceeds will fund core operations, research and development, orb production and ecosystem work.
2/ Sales took place at an average price of ~$0.2719/WLD. $25,000,000 worth of tokens sold will be subject to a six-month lock-up period.
— World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
Not all tokens sold are locked. Of the total of $65 million, only $25 million is subject to a six-month lock-up period. The rest were immediately available for trading, meaning buyers could immediately move these tokens to the open market.
3/ This sale will fund the project’s core operations and activities, R&D, orb production, ecosystem development and more.
— World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
WLD briefly hit a low of $0.24 after the sale was announced, before bouncing back to around $0.27. At that price, the token is about 97% below the peak of $11.82 recorded in March 2024.
According to Coingecko data, WLD was trading at $0.2725 as of last trading, up just 0.27% over 24 hours.
A new wave of supply is approaching
The pain may not be over yet. Facts from DefiLlama shows that there will be a major community token unlock on July 23, covering approximately 52% of WLD’s total supply of 10 billion tokens. That kind of release typically creates additional selling pressure – and comes at a time when the token is already near all-time lows.
The world’s regulatory problems have also followed the project across borders. Authorities in Indonesia have suspended World ID registration due to compliance concerns. Brazil banned the eye scanning operation from the platform. Germany opened its own investigation. Kenya has pushed back hard on data privacy grounds.
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Regulatory heat continues to build
The raid on Thailand added another entry to that list. Officials there, working with the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau through the Securities and Exchange Commission, said the iris scanning service may have operated without the required license. Arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView