Worldcoin’s native token WLD saw a massive rally over the last seven days, with the token rallying from a low of $2.64 last Monday to an intra-day high of $7.97 today.
The impressive price action seemingly has less to do with Worldcoin’s underlying technology or project updates, and more to do with founder Sam Altman’s new text-to-video AI app Sora, which was launched by Altman’s other firm OpenAI.
WLD’s 200% weekly gain is its best seven-day performance by a large margin, and has seen some of Worldcoin’s earliest investors, and largest holders, significantly better off since the token was launched last July.
These include the liquidators of now-defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) and the bankruptcy estate of collapsed crypto exchange FTX.
Teneo, which is charge of 3AC’s liquidation proceedings, holds 75 million WLD tokens, worth around $533 million at the time of writing, according to data from Arkham Intelligence. The value of WLD in the 3AC portfolio is up $65.25 million since the firm first invested in Worldcoin three years ago.
According to a confidential document sent to creditors in December, Teneo estimates that the amount of money that has been or will be admitted for distributions from 3AC is $3.2 billion, while 117 Partners puts the figure at closer to $1.8 billion to $2.8 billion. The value of its WLD portfolio could therefore theoretically help recover some portion of creditor funds. However, it is worth noting that Teneo couldn’t simply liquidate this position with a market sell order today. These early investments in WLD will be tied up in a vesting schedule and only be gradually unlocked over time.
According to data from Dealroom, 3AC participated in a $25 million round in October 2021 for Worldcoin’s developer Tools For Humanity, which valued the firm at a $1 billion valuation.
“I won’t be benefiting from WLD outperformance but I’m glad 3AC creditors have one of the largest positions in WLD in the world,” said 3AC founder Su Zhu on X.
Got hated on a lot for this worldcoin investment in 2021. i remember the hit pieces on it were so bad most of the seed rd refused to tweet to support it
I wont be benefiting from WLD outperformance but i'm glad 3ac creditors have one of the largest positions in WLD in the world https://t.co/maCxk5otWr
— 朱溯 (3/AC) (@zhusu) February 19, 2024
Alameda Research was another early investor in Worldcoin that benefited from the recent price action. FTX’s bankruptcy estate holds 25 million WLD tokens on behalf of Alameda, according to Alameda wallet data from Arkham Intelligence. The tokens are currently worth $177 million.
FTX’s bankruptcy estate has already been cleared to sell its crypto holdings and recover value for creditors, but like 3AC they too will have to wait for token unlocks to have their tokens released.
A total of 10 billion WLD will be released to the market over 15 years, while tokens allotted to investors and the development team at launch were locked for a year, with daily linear unlocks for two years that followed.
6/ 💰Investor, 🧑💻team & 🪙reserve tokens fully unlock after 3 years:
🔸1 year locked
🔸2.5bn $WLD 2-year linear unlockLinear unlocks ensure no large unlock-driven token dumping events.
However, the discrepancy between community and investor/team unlocks raises questions…: pic.twitter.com/3RjdJoHWg7
— TokenTable (@tokentable) July 26, 2023
UPDATE (Feb. 21 12:33 p.m. ET): Updated estimates of amount owed to creditors by 3AC.