The mass unlocking of tokens scheduled for the end of July may worsen the situation.
Thai authorities raided an iris scanning site associated with Sam Altman’s World project last October. That was enough trouble.
Currently, the basis of 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 it well.
World Foundation revealed On Saturday, its token-issuing arm, World Assets, completed an over-the-counter sale of $65 million worth of WLD tokens, spread across four buyers over the past week.
The first batch was settled on March 20. Based on an average sale price of approximately $0.27 per token, the transaction involved approximately 239 million WLD changing hands.
A 76% drop from last year’s price
The numbers tell the story. In May 2024, World raised $135 million at approximately $1.13 per token from donors including Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto.
1/ World Assets, Ltd. closed a series of OTC sales last week totaling $65,000,000 with four counterparties, the first of which settled on March 20, 2026.
— World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
The latest sell-off hit $0.27, down 76% from this round. The foundation said the proceeds will be used to fund core operations, research and development, ball production and ecosystem work.
2/ The sale was carried out at an average price of ~ USD 0.2719/WLD. The $25,000,000 worth of tokens sold are subject to a 6-month lock-up period.
— World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
Not all tokens sold are blocked. Of the total amount of $65 million, only $25 million is subject to a six-month suspension period. The rest was immediately available for trading, which meant buyers could immediately move these tokens to the open market.
3/ This sale funds the project’s core operations and activities, research and development, bullet production, ecosystem development and more.
— World Foundation (@worldcoinfnd) March 28, 2026
After the sale was announced, WLD briefly hit an all-time low of $0.24 before recovering to around $0.27. At this price, the token is approximately 97% below its March 2024 high of $11.82.
According to Coingecko data, WLD was trading at $0.2725 at the last reading, up just 0.27% in 24 hours.
Another wave of supply is coming
The pain may not go away. Data from DefiLlama shows that the community’s major token unlock is scheduled for July 23 and will cover approximately 52% of WLD’s total supply of 10 billion tokens. This type of release typically increases selling pressure – and comes at a time when the token is already close to an all-time low.
Regulatory problems around the world also resulted in the implementation of the project on a cross-border basis. Authorities in Indonesia have suspended World ID registration due to compliance concerns. Brazil has banned eye scanning surgery on the platform. Germany launched its own investigation. Kenya has strongly opposed the issue of data privacy.
The regulatory heat is constantly increasing
The raid on Thailand added another entry to that list. Officials working through the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Cybercrime Investigations Bureau said the iris scanning service may have operated without the required license. Arrests have been made and the investigation remains open.
Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView
