The Worldcoin Foundation, the non-profit behind the biometric digital identification platform Worldcoin, launched Wave0, a community grants program that will initially invest two million Worldcoins (WLD) (about $5 million at the token’s current price) into ecosystem projects based outside the U.S., the organization announced Wednesday.
Worldcoin was co-founded by Sam Altman, who made headlines last month when he was fired then rehired as the CEO of OpenAI in a matter of days and more recently was named Time Magazine’s CEO of the year..
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“A robust grants program is essential for the overall health and growth of the Worldcoin community,” Worldcoin wrote in a blog post, adding, “It empowers and supports builders from around the world by funding the development and implementation of the community’s most interesting, creative and beneficial projects.”
The foundation said that it might fund certain grants in USDC or similar stablecoin assets instead of WLD to account for different regulatory and commercial issues arising from the program’s global nature and to ensure “transparency, sustainability and regulatory compliance.”
Worldcoin’s Wave0 will invest in projects across three different tracks. Community grants of up to 5,000 WLD are available for community organizers, event sponsorships, hackathon projects and other similar initiatives.
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Project grants (receiving up to 25,000 WLD) are available for larger-scale projects. The remainder of available funds will go to the Open Track, which is ” available for the most significant and ambitious projects.”
Areas of interest include World ID applications, World ID protocols, hardware and operations.
Grants aren’t available to people or companies that are located in the United States. The Worldcoin Foundation will accept applications through December 22. Recipients will be announced in January.
