18 November 2023
Worldcoin (WLD) experienced a sharp decline in its market price on Saturday after its founder, Sam Altman, was removed as the CEO of popular artificial intelligence company OpenAI. This development follows the heavy regulatory scrutiny on the crypto project due to privacy concerns.
OpenAI Votes Out Sam Altman, Cites Loss Of Confidence
In a shocking development on Friday, OpenAI announced a leadership change, stating that Sam Altman will immediately exit the company as its CEO.
In this statement, the company expressed its gratitude to Altman for contributing immensely to their development during his four-year tenure as their global leader.
However, after an intense review process by the board of directors, it was concluded that the Worldcoin founder had not been fully honest in his exchanges with the board, leading to a loss of confidence in his ability to continue his duties as CEO.
Following Altman’s departure, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, will now act as interim CEO pending the appointment of a permanent successor.
However, as one could expect, Altman’s removal as OpenAI CEO, combined with the scathing statements in the company’s announcement, has created a negative sentiment around the Worldcoin project.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, WLD is currently down by 12.75% over the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the token’s daily trading volume has managed to remain afloat with a 15.13% gain.
What Next For Worldcoin?
Worldcoin was officially launched in July with the goal of creating the largest digital identity and financial network. The project relies on the use of iris-scanning orbs to physically admit new members, prompting concerns about privacy, anonymity, and user data protection.
After Altman’s departure from OpenAI, there are currently speculations on Worldcoin’s future trajectory. Clearly, Worldcoin benefited from Altman’s visibility as OpenAI’s CEO, as reflected in the token’s current downtrend.
Notably, WLD gained by over 25% in October, with many analysts citing anticipation of the OpenAI developer conference in November as the driving force.
Therefore, the removal of Altman from OpenAI may not bode well for Worldcoin in terms of credibility and public investor sentiments. On the other hand, Worldcoin could soon recover from its market slump and rise to higher heights despite this new challenge.
Following its public official launch in July, Worldcoin came under much criticism from global regulators who expressed concerns over operations in regard to the collection of data using iris scanning orbs and the potential applications of user data.
Notably, Worldcoin has been suspended from Kenya, while the governments of the United Kingdom and Germany have opened investigations into the project’s operation.
However, the crypto project has remained resilient despite these regulatory hurdles, marking a milestone of 4 million app downloads and 1 million monthly active users, as reported earlier in November.
At the time of writing, WLD trades at $1.85, with a 0.86% decline in the last hour. Meanwhile, the token’s market cap stands valued at $211.37 million.