Worldcoin, the biometric crypto project developed by Tools for Humanity and founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, is often the subject of debate within the crypto community. This time, that discussion isn’t centered around privacy concerns over its iris-scanning technology, or a wild rally in its native token price because of an unrelated OpenAI development.
One crypto trader has called out the Worldcoin Foundation’s tokenomics that benefits the team and early investors at the expense of retail investors.
In a post on X, pseudonymous crypto trader DeFiSquared estimated that in just 70 days, when venture capital and team unlocks begin vesting, Worldcoin’s native WLD token will begin inflating at a rate of 4% per day from unlocks and emissions.
Worldcoin realistically might become the greatest transfer of wealth of this entire cycle. Unfortunately, this wealth transfer isn't in the form of universal basic income as their mission suggests, but instead to the pockets of the team and insiders. I’ve posted a bit on it… pic.twitter.com/Gr83mnt3Ms
— DeFi^2 (@DefiSquared) May 13, 2024
“That’s nearly $50 million a day of nonstop sell pressure on a coin insiders are hoping to cash out at $60 billion FDV [fully diluted valuation],” he wrote.
DeFiSquared highlighted a recent announcement from the Worldcoin Foundation, noting that they would be selling an additional $200 million more worth of tokens to trading firms, which in his view, are being sold to adversarial parties to benefit the Foundation despite being named the community allocation of WLD token supply.
Worldcoin did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.
Last month, the Worldcoin Foundation said it plans to gradually sell WLD tokens from its subsidiary World Assets through private placements to a select group of institutional trading firms outside of the U.S. According to the Foundation, this sale would be in aid of meeting the “increasing demand for orb-verified World IDs” and to support the growth of the network.
The top 10 holders of the WLD token hold 91.5% of the total supply, according to data from Lookonchain. These holders include liquidators of the bankrupt crypt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), which holds 75 million WLD tokens, and the FTX bankruptcy estate, which holds 25 million WLD tokens.
