Sam Altman’s Worldcoin token goes on a wild ride around OpenAI drama

By Sidhartha Shukla

The Worldcoin digital token from a project co-founded by Sam Altman has been among the most volatile in crypto recently as the saga over his OpenAI ouster and potential reinstatement transfixes the business world.

The token began sliding Thursday from a peak of $2.48 as digital-asset markets retreated, a drop that was exacerbated by Altman’s firing on Friday. Worldcoin eventually hit a low of $1.84 in the hours after his exit, CoinGecko data shows.

Worldcoin, also known as WLD, has since rallied 18 per cent in 24 hours to retake the $2.40 level amid efforts by a group of OpenAI executives and investors to reinstate Altman as chief executive officer.

The token has a market value of about $280 million, ranking it 157th in the crypto market, according to CoinGecko as of 8:51 a.m. in Singapore on Monday.

“It’s all driven by Altman news flow and concerns over his ouster at OpenAI,” said Richard Galvin, co-founder at Digital Asset Capital Management. The token “rallied back as it became clearer there was no key negative event that drove the board’s move,” he said.

Worldcoin is a blockchain-based system that uses a small orb to scan people’s eyeballs in order to generate a unique digital identity. Altman co-founded the company behind it, Tools for Humanity.

Holders of a so-called World ID digital identity can also receive Worldcoin tokens. The coins aren’t available in the US due to a lack of regulatory clarity.

World IDs are meant to establish personhood in an artificial intelligence-enabled future where distinguishing between humans and machines may become harder. The project that has stirred both privacy and ethics concerns.

Worldcoin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the gyrations in the token over the past few days.

A group of 90 crypto coins linked to the AI theme has also posted volatile performance, including a 7 per cent jump in combined market value over the past 24 hours to about $6.5 billion, CoinGecko figures show.