After a 97% plunge, World raised 65 million in off-exchange financing. Is it "preparing a big move" amidst the deep bear market?

Original author: Mach, Foresight News

On March 28th, the World Foundation announced the completion of a $65 million OTC sale of WLD tokens, with an average transaction price of $0.2719. This transaction involved four counterparties, with the first transaction settling on March 20th, 2026. $25 million worth of WLD tokens are subject to a 6-month lock-up period. The official statement indicated 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 World Assets' multi-signature address 0xE797.

In the current deep bear market environment, it is quite rare to complete a token transaction worth tens of millions of dollars. The last time the World Foundation raised a large amount of tokens was in May 2025, when its subsidiary World Assets sold $135 million worth of WLD tokens to early backers a16z and Bain Capital Crypto at market price.

Looking back at WLD's complete trajectory in this cycle, it can be described as a textbook example of going from hype to reality. In July 2023, Worldcoin (now renamed World) officially launched WLD, which quickly became the focus of the market thanks to Sam Altman's personal endorsement, the AI ​​big model craze, and the unique narrative of "proof of human uniqueness".

In March 2024, fueled by the Bitcoin halving cycle and the rise of AI, the price of WLD surged in a single month, reaching an all-time high of approximately $11.8, with its market capitalization once approaching $10 billion. That year, global users showed unprecedented enthusiasm for registering World IDs through Orb iris scanning, and the project was considered a leading contender in Web3 identity infrastructure.

But after the initial brilliance, it quickly faded into obscurity. In the second half of 2024, with the overall crypto market correction, strict scrutiny of biometric data by regulatory agencies such as the EU, and the pressure of large-scale unlocking by the projects themselves, the price of WLD began to plummet.

Throughout 2025, the price of WLD fluctuated between $0.5 and $1.5. While the adoption rate of iris recognition technology steadily increased, it fell far short of early expectations, and user growth showed a clear disconnect from narrative momentum. Entering 2026, WLD continued its downward trend, recently hitting a new low of $0.2433, and is currently hovering around $0.27, representing a cumulative drop of over 97% compared to ATH.

In this cycle, the price movement of WLD coin closely resembles the three-stage process of most altcoins: concept-driven → supply pressure → implementation test . The early premium mainly came from the Altman IP and AI trend, while the later premium was suppressed by continuous unlocking and macro tightening.

Interestingly, just before it announced the large OTC deal, on March 25, World officially released a research report titled "Private Proof of Human: Critical Infrastructure for Humanity in a World with Advanced AI." The report directly addresses the core pain point of the AI ​​agent era: how to establish a reliable and privacy-protected "human proof" infrastructure in a digital world saturated with machines.

The paper details the technical solution of combining Orb iris scanning hardware with Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) and Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP). This solution efficiently verifies human uniqueness while completely preventing the leakage of personal biometric data, making it more forward-looking and secure than traditional facial recognition or passport verification. This solution is positioned as the foundation of trust for the future internet, effectively combating deepfakes and AI bot attacks.

On March 26, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of a16z, shared the paper on the X platform with a brief but weighty comment: It’s time for humanity to prove it.

In an era where AI is reshaping productivity, PoH will become essential for distinguishing humans from machines and rebuilding trust in the digital economy.

On March 17th, World launched AgentKit, which works by having its agent register using World ID proof, linking a wallet to an anonymous human identity. The agent signs a standard authentication challenge on a protected endpoint, and the agent's signature is matched against its associated human identity; a successful match grants access. The official description of AgentKit's applications includes privacy protection, ticketing systems, access frequency limits, and protection against Sybil attacks.

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

The conference focused on the latest developments in World ID, Orb hardware iterations, and human verification applications in the AI ​​era. Altman's appearance itself symbolizes top-tier visibility and confidence, and may also signal a potential collaboration between OpenAI and World ID— AI agents need real human identity verification, and World ID provides a decentralized solution.

Currently, WLD has a market capitalization of $1.346 billion, an FDV of $2.758 billion, and 48.80% of the tokens have been unlocked.

In addition, WLD continues to unlock 0.05% of its maximum supply daily, approximately 5.32 million tokens, worth about $1.479 million. Based on this, the value of tokens unlocked each month is approximately $44.369 million, which is expected to continue to exert significant selling pressure on the market.