Our own analysis / A risk we watch

Why Did WLD Crash?

Millions of people use World, yet WLD is down about 95% from its high. We think the reason is simple.

Updated Oct 4 20263 min read
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(This is our own view, not financial advice. We could be wrong.)

Worldcoin, now called World, is one of the most famous crypto projects. Millions of people have signed up, and it is backed by big names. Yet its coin, WLD, is down about 95% from its high in 2024. In our view, the reason is not a lack of users. It is that almost nobody needs to buy the coin, while new coins keep arriving every day.

1Nobody needs to buy WLD

To use World, you download the app and verify that you are a real person. That is free, and you never have to buy WLD to do it. In fact, it works the other way around: World gives free WLDto people who verify. So a new user doesn't bring new money into the coin. They get coins for free, and many people probably sell them.

Compare that with Solana. To trade a new coin on Solana, you first have to buy SOL. Every new user there is a buyer.

Figure 1
With a coin users must buy, every new user is a buyer and money flows in. With a free coin, the app pays the user, the user sells, and coins flow out.
Where the money goes, in the two kinds of coin.

2New WLD arrives every day

The free coins for users are only part of it. The bigger part, from our research, is that the team and early investors unlock new WLD every single day, and the project's foundation pays out more. All of this adds about 4% more WLD every three months, and there is no buyback and no burn to take any of it back. So more and more coins meet very few people who need to buy them, and we think that is why the price keeps sliding.

World (WLD)Our WLD page: where the new coins come from

3The same story in other coins

Worldcoin is not alone. A few other big coins look very similar to us:

  • Pi Network pays free PI to people who tap a button in its app, and it is down about 97%.
  • Helium pays HNT to people who run a hotspot at home, and it is down about 99%.
  • Filecoin pays new FIL to people who store files for it, and it is down more than 99%.
Figure 2
Coins that pay users for free (Helium, Worldcoin, Pi, Filecoin) sit together: many new coins coming and down 95 to 99.6 percent from their highs. Coins users must buy (Solana, Ethereum, Hyperliquid) sit apart: few new coins and down 8 to 59 percent.
Each dot is a coin. Further right means more new coins are coming; lower means a bigger fall from its high. Oct 4 2026.

4What could prove us wrong

These coins can still jump in a hot market. And World has said apps will pay fees in WLD to use its ID system. If that really takes off, people would finally need to buy WLD, and the picture could change a lot. For now, we haven't seen it at a size that matters.

5MrNasdog's Thought

MrNasdog

A big user number is not the same as demand for the coin. With Worldcoin, I think users get coins instead of buying them.

So before I look at any coin with millions of users, I ask one question: does a user actually have to buy it?

Just my personal view. — MrNasdog

(Again, this is our own view, not financial advice. Please check the numbers yourself before you decide anything.)

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