Shares of Eightco Holdings (Nasdaq: OCTO) surged over 3,000% on Monday, following the company’s announcement of a bold move to adopt Worldcoin (WLD) as its primary treasury reserve asset.
Key Takeaways:
- Eightco shares surged over 3,000% after announcing a $250 million plan to adopt Worldcoin as its primary treasury asset.
- The company will rebrand its ticker to “ORBS”, aligning with Worldcoin’s iris-scanning Orb devices.
- Eightco joins a wave of firms entering crypto treasuries, following the path of MicroStrategy and BitMine.
The little-known e-commerce inventory platform revealed plans to raise $250 million through a private placement of 171.23 million common shares at $1.46 each, aiming to build a substantial position in the Sam Altman-backed crypto project.
The offering is expected to close on Thursday, with strategic participants including the World Foundation, Kraken, and FalconX.
Eightco shares skyrocketed from $1.45 on Friday to $45.08 at Monday’s close, a gain of 3,009%, after briefly hitting an intraday high above $80.
After-hours trading saw the stock cool slightly, dropping nearly 6% to $42.40.
The company said it may also accumulate Ethereum (ETH) as a secondary asset, but its primary focus will be on Worldcoin, the controversial iris-scan-based cryptocurrency project run by World Network, formerly known as Tools for Humanity.
Eightco also announced plans to rebrand its ticker to “ORBS” to reflect its alignment with Worldcoin’s eye-scanning Orb devices, which are used to issue World IDs as proof of personhood in an increasingly AI-driven internet.
Worldcoin, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, aims to verify human identity online using biometric data. In return, users receive WLD tokens and access to a growing ecosystem of services.
While the project has gained traction, it’s also faced heavy scrutiny from regulators and privacy watchdogs, resulting in restrictions and bans in multiple countries.
“If we succeed on our mission, World might become the largest network of real people online,” Altman said in a statement.
Eightco’s move places it in the growing club of public companies diversifying into crypto treasuries, following the playbook popularized by firms like MicroStrategy and BitMine Immersion Technologies, the latter of which invested $20 million into Eightco as part of its broader crypto strategy.
Dan Ives Named Chairman of Eightco Amid Worldcoin Pivot
As part of the announcement, Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities’ head of tech research, was named chairman of Eightco’s board.
Known for his bullish views on AI and disruptive technologies, Ives called the move “the next step in the AI revolution around authentication and Proof of Human.”
Meanwhile, Worldcoin has surged 49.2% in the past 24 hours, trading at $1.54, with a seven-day gain of over 80%. Despite the rally, the token remains down nearly 87% from its all-time high of $11.74 in March 2024.
As reported, Worldcoin’s digital identity system, World ID, has surpassed 100 million uses across third-party apps, marking a major milestone for Sam Altman’s identity-focused crypto initiative.
However, mounting regulatory pressure and uncertainty continue to weigh on the project, prompting a rebrand to World Network and the rollout of new identity tools like NFC passport verification, aimed at privacy-friendly onboarding.
France, Portugal, Spain, Hong Kong, and South Korea have all launched investigations into the project’s data practices.
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