Eightco Holdings Bets on Worldcoin Tokens as Its Core Treasury Asset
Eightco Holdings (ORBS) reported total holdings of approximately $340 million on May 13, anchored by more than 283 million Worldcoin (WLD) tokens. The company also disclosed stakes in OpenAI and Beast Industries, along with more than 11,000 Ethereum (ETH) tokens.
Eightco describes itself as executing a first-of-its-kind worldcoin treasury strategy, positioning WLD as its primary reserve asset the way MicroStrategy positioned bitcoin.
What Eightco Actually Holds
The PR Newswire release published May 13 breaks the portfolio into four disclosed components. The 283 million WLD tokens form the core.
The 11,000-plus ETH position adds a second liquid cryptocurrency layer. The OpenAI and Beast Industries stakes are private-market equity positions, meaning they carry no daily mark-to-market price.
The combined $340 million figure represents total holdings across all four categories. Eightco has not published a per-token cost basis for its WLD position, so the paper gain or loss relative to acquisition price is unknown.
WLD traded near $0.99 on May 14, giving 283 million tokens a market value of roughly $280 million at that rate.
That figure alone accounts for most of the disclosed $340 million total.
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What the Worldcoin Treasury Strategy Means
Eightco’s approach mirrors the corporate treasury playbook that MicroStrategy (MSTR) popularized with bitcoin starting in August 2020. Under that model, a public company converts its cash reserves, and in some cases its entire operating identity, into a cryptocurrency position.
Shareholders get leveraged exposure to the token without buying it directly through a cryptocurrency exchange.
Worldcoin is a protocol co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman that links biometric identity, specifically iris scanning, to a digital wallet and a basic-income token distribution. The project has faced regulatory scrutiny in multiple countries over its data collection practices.
Its WLD token is the native asset of that ecosystem, used for governance and as the distribution vehicle for the protocol’s universal basic income payments.
Eightco’s bet is that WLD will appreciate as Worldcoin’s user base grows and as AI-linked identity infrastructure becomes more strategically valuable. That thesis is speculative.
WLD is down roughly 85% from its 2023 peak, and the token’s utility remains contested. A public company staking its entire balance sheet on a single mid-cap token carries concentration risk that is fundamentally different from MicroStrategy’s bitcoin position, which benefits from bitcoin’s liquidity depth and institutional recognition.
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Background
The corporate treasury-in-crypto trend accelerated after MicroStrategy’s first bitcoin purchase in August 2020.
Since then, dozens of smaller public companies have adopted similar structures, ranging from mining firms holding their own production to shell companies explicitly restructured around a single token. Metaplanet in Japan and Semler Scientific in the US both adopted bitcoin treasuries in 2024 and saw their share prices move sharply on the announcement. Eightco’s strategy applies the same structural logic to WLD, a token with a fraction of bitcoin’s liquidity and a live regulatory debate attached to its biometric data model.
The company trades on Nasdaq under the ticker ORBS.
Its pre-treasury-pivot business was e-commerce infrastructure. That legacy business appears subordinate to the treasury strategy in the company’s current communications.
Worldcoin launched its mainnet in July 2023 and has expanded the Orb device rollout, the hardware unit that scans irises, to dozens of countries since then.
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What Comes Next
Eightco has not disclosed a target WLD accumulation level or a timeline for additional purchases. The absence of a cost-basis disclosure makes it difficult for shareholders to assess realized versus unrealized gains.
WLD’s trading volume on May 14 was thin enough that a large forced sale would move the market against the company. Investors watching this position should track three things: WLD’s price relative to the $0.99 level on May 14, any regulatory action against the Worldcoin protocol in major jurisdictions, and whether Eightco discloses a formal treasury policy with acquisition targets.
Without those disclosures, the $340 million headline figure is largely a mark-to-market snapshot.
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