Sam Altman’s Worldcoin will launch its much-anticipated token — $WLD — on Monday (7/24) morning at 10AM EST.

Semafor first broke the news.

At the time of writing, OKX was the first and only CEX to confirm it will list WLD, which is an ERC-20 token on Optimism.

Worldcoin has grown so quickly (2+ million verified users) thanks, in part, to its promise of free money. It’s the oldest trick in the book. I mean, who doesn’t love free schmoney?

One of the perks of verifying one’s unique humanness via the Orb is the Worldcoin token. And now the token will finally be liquid — making it possible for hodlers to buy, sell and transfer.

Worldcoin has been distributing WLD to non-Americans (thx Gary!) for many months now, but prevented people from trading or transferring their tokens. All that changes at 10AM EST.

A word of advice from a recovering CEX employee who oversaw dozens of token launches in a past life — these market events tend to be messy. And by messy, I mean volatile. IEOs are not for the faint of heart. Oftentimes popular tokens with large followings, like Worldcoin, pump hard when trading opens, only to quickly revert due to inevitable sell pressure.

An interesting quirk w/r/t Worldcoin is the token has been pretty widely distributed. Say what you will about Sama, biometrics and the whole idea of scanning eyeballs. But I’m not aware of any other crypto project that’s literally sent people around random countries in Southeast Asia, Africa and LatAm signing up users and distributing free tokens. Worldcoin is in a class of its own in this respect.

Philosophically, this is great — fair launches for the win! But, like, selfishly speaking as a degen this is, uh, not ideal. A widely distributed token means widely distributed sell pressure. A lotta these people in under privileged places were promised free money. And in a few hours, they will finally have the opportunity to realize their free money.

Significant sell pressure at open should be expected. The tricky part will be quickly taking the pulse of the bid side of the book and trading accordingly. As we’ve covered in past market notes, the AI narrative has been one of the few bright spots across crypto this year. And Worldcoin is arguable the most obvious “AI play” in crypto right now. That should draw in some bidooors, even amid the thawing but still chilly crypto winter.

Good luck at open frens. Eye wish you the best.