Worldcoin Surges as Eightco Adopts $270M Treasury Strategy, Led by Tech Analyst Dan Ives

Dan Ives to become chair of company that will buy Sam Altman-backed Worldcoin for its treasury

Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives is joining a new company focused on accumulating Worldcoin (WLD), the native token of the blockchain used in Open AI creator Sam Altman's biometric identity verification startup, World. Eightco Holdings, a tiny company that currently trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker "OCTO," announced Monday that Ives, Wedbush's global head of technology research, is now chairman of the board of directors. It also announced a $250 million private placement to implement a buying strategy around Worldcoin as its main treasury asset. "As someone that's so passionate about the AI revolution and the future of tech, I view World as really the de facto standard for authentication and identification in the future world of AI," Ives told CNBC. "I would not be doing this initiative if it was just a cookie cutter token strategy." The offering is expected to close on or around Sept. 11, at which point it plans to change its ticker to "ORBS." Ives' move is similar to one made by another widely-followed Wall Street forecaster, Tom Lee of Fundstrat, who in June joined the ether accumulator BitMine Immersion Technologies as chairman. BitMine shares have rocked more than 800% since Lee announced his involvement. That company also made a $20 million strategic investment in Eightco, it announced Monday, marking the start of its "Moonshot" strategy to back bold ideas that strengthen Ethereum's ecosystem. Given the more crypto-friendly regulatory environment this year, more public companies have adopted the MicroStrategy playbook of using debt financing and equity sales to buy crypto to hold on their balance sheet to try to increase shareholder returns. Companies with high-profile backers like Fundstrat's Lee and tech billionaire Peter Thiel (who has a stake in both ether-focused companies BitMine and Ethzilla) have been holding up better in the recent crypto pullback. Altman's World venture aims to authenticate actual humans on its network given the acceleration of the number of threats from artificial intelligence, such as deepfakes. The project provides users with a "World ID" for anonymous sign-ins and rewards them with its Worldcoin cryptocurrency. "As the AI infrastructure and [large language models] are built out without true identification and proof of human, it's a limiting factor in the growth of AI for the coming years," Ives said. "I view the whole crypto world going more and more toward a focus on blockchain, and how are you going to identify humans ... in a future where robots are going to play a major role in physical AI?" His comments on the need for a digital identity verification system echo those made by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink who has said in his annual letter this year that one day "tokenized funds," or funds represented on a blockchain network like Ethereum, "will become as familiar to investors as ETFs -- provided we crack one critical problem: identity verification." Worldcoin launched in 2023 and has a market cap of about $1 billion, compared to bitcoin's roughly $2 trillion and ether's $518 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Eightco Chair Dan Ives Calls Sam Altman's World Project The 'Intersection Of AI And Crypto,' Compares It To Nvidia, Palantir - BitMine Immersion Techs (AMEX:BMNR)

Wall Street tech analyst Dan Ives expressed on Monday his excitement and vision for his new role as chairman of Eightco Holdings Inc. OCTO, a firm that has adopted World (WLD) as its primary reserve asset. 'Intersection' Of AI And Crypto During an interview with CNBC, Ives, a senior research analyst at Wedbush Securities, said he was "excited" to take over the role, given his "passion" for AI and the potential of the decentralized identity verification project. "When you think about these Orb devices, the iris scanning, in my opinion, is going to be the de facto standard when we think about separating from bots, identifying humans. And ultimately, this is really more of an infrastructure play. It's really the intersection of AI and crypto," Ives said. See Also: Warren Paul Anderson: Token Buy-And-Burn Mechanisms Could Damp Volatility Spillovers Into Bitcoin, Ethereum - Benzinga Ives Compares World To Nvidia, Palantir He argued that despite the trillions being poured into large language models and data centers, the future of AI will be determined by authentication and identification. Ives compared the current state of the project to where Nvidia Corp. NVDA and Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR were in 2022, suggesting a similar trajectory of growth and influence. EightCo raised $250 million through a private placement to adopt WLD as its primary treasury reserve asset. Tom Lee-led Bitmine Immersion Technologies Inc. BMNR also disclosed a $20 million investment into the company as the first "Moonshot" initiative in its Ethereum ETH/USD ecosystem expansion plan. World's Privacy Concerns World, formerly Worldcoin, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is an identity verification project that captures people's irises to confirm their humanness and build a digital ID, allowing them to receive free WLD tokens. However, it has courted controversy over personal data privacy concerns and is currently outlawed in Hong Kong, Kenya, and Spain. The project debuted in the U.S. earlier this year. To address the privacy concerns, World implemented a personal custody feature that ensures users' data remains on their devices and not with World or any third party. Price Action: At the time of writing, WLD was exchanging hands at $1.68, up 45% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Shares of Eightco fell 5.94% in after-hours trading after exploding 3008.97% to $45.08 during the regular trading session. As of this writing, the stock demonstrated a moderately high Momentum score. Visit Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings to compare it with how BitMine, the world's biggest ETH treasury company. Read Next: AI Vs. Hollywood Battle Heats Up: OpenAI Financing AI-Made Animated Film To Show Lower Costs, Faster Timeline Photo Courtesy: CryptoFX on Shutterstock.com Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. $ETHEthereum - United States dollar$4298.20-0.17%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum94.82Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewBMNRBitMine Immersion Technologies Inc$44.104.90%MSTRStrategy Inc$330.80-1.51%NVDANVIDIA Corp$168.200.71%OCTOEightco Holdings Inc$42.402824.1%PLTRPalantir Technologies Inc$156.202.02%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

First Worldcoin Treasury Strategy Gets a $270M Kickstart

A first-of-its-kind Worldcoin treasury strategy begins. | Credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images. * Dan Ives believes the next step in the AI revolution is identity and authentication. * Worldcoin is trading up 19.5% at $1.24 in the past 24 hours with a market cap of $2.49 billion. * Eightco's stock OCTO is up over 1,000% in pre-market trading. It will rebrand to ORBS on Sept. 11, 2025. Eightco Holdings has unveiled the first corporate treasury strategy centered on Worldcoin (WLD), aiming to establish itself as a leading institutional player in the token. Worldcoin Treasury Eightco Holdings has raised $250 million in gross proceeds through a massive private placement of 171.2 million shares. Now, it will initiate the world's first Worldcoin treasury strategy, using proceeds to acquire WLD tokens. This also includes a $20 million strategic investment from BitMine. Wedbush Securities' global head of technology research and senior equity analyst, Dan Ives, has now been appointed as Chairman of the Board and will lead the firm through this initiative. In an interview with CNBC, Ives explained that the WLD treasury move excites him as "it's ultimately more of an infrastructure play." He describes the firm as "at the intersection of AI and crypto," and envisions Worldcoin, its Orbs identity platform, playing a big role in the future. "As someone that's so passionate about the AI revolution and the future of tech, I view World as really the de facto standard for authentication and identification in the future world of AI." Eightco Holdings will change its trading symbol from OCTO to "ORBS" from Sept. 11, 2025. The Treasury Effect As seen with other crypto treasury strategy announcements, investors are looking favourably upon the news, which has resulted in Eightco's stock, OCTO, jumping over 1,000% in pre-market trading upon the news. Worldcoin is trading up over 21% at $1.26, marking a 43% increase over the past week. Whether it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana, Wall Street's most influential are betting on crypto as the world increasingly turns to digital assets as viable long-term bets.

Why Sam Altman's identification-authentication cryptocurrency,...

Sam Altman's Worldcoin is the latest cryptocurrency to get the so-called treasury strategy treatment -- when a publicly traded company uses a significant amount of cash on its balance sheet to buy digital assets. On Monday, Eightco surged more than 3,000%, from $18 per share to $45 per share, off the announcement that it will purchase $270 million of Worldcoin -- while Worldcoin skyrocketed nearly 50%, from $1.03 to $1.53. The digital identity cryptocurrency project wants to authenticate every person on Earth by scanning their irises, generating a unique "IrisCode" but not, the company says, saving their biometric data. Eightco will change its name to Orbs, an homage to the Worldcoin mission, when the deal officially closes later this week, pending Nasdaq's approval. "This is not just a crypto token strategy ... this is tech infrastructure," Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities analyst and Eightco's new chairman, told me in an exclusive interview. "There is a ceiling on the future of AI without true human proof identification ... Worldcoin is integral to the AI buildout." Ives and investor Tom Lee believe Worldcoin's appeal lies in its ability to "verify humanness" -- that a user is a person and not a bot filling out surveys, taking online exams, signing documents or even appearing on dating apps. In a world increasingly dominated by AI agents and bots, delineating between humanity and artificial intelligence will become incredibly valuable. "On a dating app you might match with a tennis pro or supermodel but it's a robot ... on a future dating app, you'll have an icon that says 'proof of human,'" said Lee, who is the chairman of BitMine -- which invested $20 million in Eightco. "For companies looking to make an advertising push, they'll shell out a lot more for ads targeted to verified humans," Lee added. Of course, the idea of Worldcoin scanning everyone's iris might sounds downright dystopian to some critics. But Lee counters this concern, arguing that, unlike companies such as Apple, which store biometric data, Worldcoin generates a cryptographic hash -- a zero-knowledge proof that confirms humanness without storing or exposing personal biometric information. The World App stores this IrisCode data on the Worldcoin blockchain, promising privacy. "This is the intersection of AI and crypto," Ives said. However, Worldcoin already faces regulatory scrutiny in countries like Portugal and temporary bans in China, Spain and Hong Kong over biometric data privacy concerns. As dozens of companies embrace Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) by holding Bitcoin and Ethereum, Eightco's choice of Worldcoin as its primary treasury asset is strategic because its governance token status allows holders to influence the World Network's development, potentially shaping security and policy decisions. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are easily purchased on user-friendly platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood, acquiring Worldcoin requires you scan your iris or create a digital wallet and purchase it through another digital coin like Ethereum. Worldcoin, co-founded by Sam Altman and Alex Blania in 2019, has verified over 16 million human identities and aims to reach 100 million users in the next year as it scales its global digital identity network. Users who verify their identity receive tokens to encourage participation. "AI and Wall Street are moving to the blockchain," Ives said.