OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman’s ambitious undertaking, the “privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID)” project, has stirred up the crypto sector. Its native token, Worldcoin (WLD), displayed a notable uptick after it was listed on key crypto exchanges. Trading at $2.22, WLD notched an impressive daily gain of 33% that even outperformed the likes of Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP, which were trading on a downtrend.
However, this hasn’t quelled skepticism from the crypto community. One particular area that has drawn concern is the project’s circulating supply versus its cap. Currently, just 1% of the total supply is in circulation. Yet, Worldcoin boasts a fully diluted market capitalization exceeding $22 billion.
The launch of WLD involved 143 million tokens being issued, with a significant portion of 100 million allocated to market makers. The remainder was given to investors who verified their identities through iris scanning during Worldcoin’s pre-launch process. Despite the apprehension regarding the token’s price stability and longevity, leading exchanges like Binance, Bybit, Huobi, OKX, Gate.io, and Kucoin listed the token. Worldcoin’s current 24-hour trading volumes go beyond $348 million as per CoinGecko data.
Emerging in parallel is a key discourse around regulations that are influencing the markets. For instance, in the United States, two new legislative initiatives have altered the landscape. One is the bipartisan bill engineered by Senator Jack Reed, which tightens the Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations and sanctions for decentralized finance operations. The second is the ‘Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act,’ which empowers the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over digital commodities, clarifies the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and lays down a process for initially naming digital assets as securities to be later sold as commodities.
While some critics deem these regulatory maneuvers redundant, as existing tools and expertise can handle these “relatively small but important issues,” others feel that such steps are crucial to ensuring market sanity. These market movements underline the constant tug of war between technological innovation and regulatory grip that continually shapes the crypto sector. As investors and enthusiasts, the key is to keep abreast of these dynamic changes and make informed decisions.
Source: Cointelegraph
