Eightco becomes biggest public Worldcoin holder with $326M bet

Nasdaq-listed Eightco Holdings has disclosed a $326 million position in 277 million Worldcoin tokens, plus ETH, cash, and an indirect OpenAI stake, effectively transforming the stock into a high-beta proxy on Sam Altman’s identity project and AI ecosystem.

Nasdaq-listed Eightco Holdings has disclosed a $326 million asset position centered on 277,222,975 Worldcoin tokens, making it the largest publicly traded holder of WLD globally, according to a press release on PR Newswire. At an indicative price of roughly $0.28 per WLD taken from Coinbase at the disclosure time, the position represents nearly 10% of Worldcoin’s (WLD) circulating supply and effectively turns Eightco into a listed proxy for the controversial identity token.

In the same disclosure, Eightco reported additional digital-asset and cash holdings that round out its balance sheet. The company highlighted an indirect $90 million investment in OpenAI via private vehicles, a $25 million stake in Beast Industries, and roughly $109 million in cash and stablecoins, underscoring that the Worldcoin bet sits alongside broader exposure to AI and infrastructure plays.

Eightco said its treasury includes 11,068 ETH alongside the WLD position and cash, and described itself as “the largest public market participant in the Worldcoin ecosystem.” As of early March, the firm’s filings indicated that WLD accounts for the bulk of its marked-to-market assets, with cash and stablecoins providing a liquidity buffer against token price volatility.

Chairman Dan Ives framed the strategy as a deliberate attempt to sit at the center of the AI and digital-identity boom tied to Sam Altman’s projects. “We believe the global AI revolution is still in its early innings, and Eightco is strategically positioning itself at the center of this transformation,” Ives said, describing the company’s focus as building “authentication and trust infrastructure” spanning consumer, enterprise and gaming use cases.

The disclosure comes as Worldcoin trades in the sub-$1 range after a sharp retracement from prior highs, with recent data showing WLD changing hands around $0.27 to $0.32 and a market capitalization under $1 billion. That pricing implies Eightco’s 277 million-token stake is a highly concentrated, high-beta exposure to both Worldcoin’s identity experiment and market sentiment on AI-linked crypto assets.

Eightco has previously raised hundreds of millions of dollars in private placements to fund its Worldcoin treasury strategy and related investments, signaling institutional backers are willing to finance a balance sheet tied heavily to a single experimental protocol. For equity investors, the updated holdings turn ORBS into a leveraged derivative on WLD’s future — with upside tied to adoption of proof-of-humanity systems, and downside if the token’s economics or regulatory headwinds overwhelm the AI narrative.