Sam Altman’s blockchain project World Network has raised $135 million in a private token sale of its WLD token.
The sale was to venture capital giants a16z and Bain Capital Crypto and will be used to fund network expansion, the team shared.
WLD is higher by 14% on the news.
The funding comes as the group behind the blockchain announced the project’s in-app functionalities as well as the WLD token has become available as of earlier this month to U.S. users.
“To meet increasing demand for Orb-verified World IDs and support the expansion of the World network throughout the U.S. and beyond, World Assets, Ltd. (a subsidiary of the World Foundation) sold $135M of WLD at market prices to two of the project’s earliest backers, Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto. The circulating supply of WLD has thus increased correspondingly,” the team wrote in a blog post.
The WLD token was created at launch in July 2023, and it currently has a market capitalization of $1.87 billion and is up 55% in the last month, according to CoinMarketCap. WLD though is down roughly 75% from its all time high.
Until earlier this month, U.S. users were unable to use World’s primary product, their orbs, a bowling ball-shaped device that scans a person’s eyeballs to confirm their identity. Once they scan, users can access the World app and receive an airdrop of the WLD token, which can then be used in World’s miniapps ecosystem.
During the announcement earlier this month, Altman shared that the project hopes to have to give 180 million Americans access to Orbs, more than half the country’s population, by the end of the year.
Read more: Sam Altman’s World Crypto Project Launches in US With Eye-Scanning Orbs in 6 Cities