What Caused Sam Altman-Founded World Network Token To Soar 57% in a Week?

World Network (WLD) outperformed some of the market’s most valued cryptocurrencies after soaring more than 50% over the week. 

What happened: WLD, the native currency of the decentralized identity verification project, jumped 57.48% in the last seven days, becoming the sixth-largest market gain in the period. 

The rally outgained returns by market heavyweights Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ethereum ETH/USD, which trailed at 10.17% and 11.12%, respectively.

Over the week, the daily active addresses have more than doubled, while large whale transactions, valued at over $100,000, have soared 393%, according to IntoTheBlock.

Speculative interest has also spiked, with Open Interest in WLD’s derivatives surging to a 3-month high of $340 million, per Coinglass. Over 67% of Binance traders with an open WLD position were betting on its price increase.

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Why It Matters: The searing rally comes ahead of the World Network’s upcoming event hosted by its founder and well-known tech entrepreneur, Sam Altman.

The San Francisco event, called “At Last,” could see major updates for the network and the cryptocurrency, providing further impetus to the rally.

During the last such event in October 2024, the project rebranded itself from “Worldcoin” to simply “World” and announced the launch of World Chain, an Ethereum ETH/USD Layer-2 network.

World Network captures people’s irises to confirm their humanness and build a digital ID, making them eligible for free WLD tokens.

However, it has been mired in controversy over concerns of personal data privacy, getting outlawed in Hong Kong, Kenya, and Spain.

Price Action: At the time of writing, WLD was exchanging hands at $1.16, up 18.60% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

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Image: Shutterstock/jamesonwu1972