Altman-founded Worldcoin’s crypto token crashes 12% after his ouster from OpenAI

Worldcoin, the crypto project co-founded by Sam Altman who has been sacked as OpenAI CEO in a dramatic move, saw its token crashing on Saturday.

The token called WLD fell more than 12 per cent to $1.91, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Altman’s crypto project raised $115 million in May in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital.

In July, Altman launched eyeball-scanning cryptocurrency startup ‘Worldcoin’ to help build a reliable solution for distinguishing humans from AI online, enable global democratic processes and drastically increase economic opportunity.

“If successful, we believe Worldcoin could drastically increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable solution for distinguishing humans from AI online while preserving privacy, enable global democratic processes, and eventually show a potential path to AI-funded UBI,” Altman had said.

Worldcoin consists of a privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID) and, where laws allow, a digital currency (WLD) received simply for being human.

Worldcoin’s application has over four million downloads and its active users are “more than double” globally.

Meanwhile, Altman was fired as CEO of OpenAI, the developer of AI chatbot ChatGPT, and the company’s board said late on Friday it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

Altman’s sudden departure followed a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, “hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities”

Chief technology officer Mira Murati will be the interim CEO, effective immediately and the company will conduct a search for a permanent CEO successor