In Brief:
- On Monday, Grayscale submitted an S-1 to the SEC for what would be the first US exchange-traded fund built around Worldcoin’s WLD token.
- Trading on Nasdaq under the ticker GWLD, the fund would hold WLD directly and follow the CoinDesk Worldcoin Benchmark Rate, minus expenses.
- Crucial details such as the management fee and seed capital were left unfilled, and the submission carries no promise of approval.
Grayscale lodged an S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, aiming to bring the first US exchange-traded fund linked to Worldcoin’s WLD token to market.
Known as the Grayscale Worldcoin ETF, the proposed vehicle would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker GWLD. The fund would take direct custody of WLD and mirror the token’s price via the CoinDesk Worldcoin Benchmark Rate, less expenses.
Grayscale Files First Worldcoin ETF With SEC
Grayscale has filed with the SEC to launch the first ETF tied to Worldcoin's $WLD token in the United States.
The proposed fund would passively hold WLD and track its market price, less expenses, according to the filing.
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According to the filing, the product is entirely passive, steering clear of leverage, derivatives and any active management. Grayscale said it intends to support in-kind creations and redemptions.
A fast filing
The pace was rapid. Grayscale established the trust on July 10 and submitted the registration just 10 days afterward.
The firm is seeking to list under Nasdaq’s generic listing standards for commodity-based trusts — a pathway that allows crypto ETFs to come to market without going through a standalone approval.
Under the plan, BitGo Bank & Trust would hold the WLD in custody, BNY Mellon would act as administrator and transfer agent, and CSC Delaware Trust Company would serve as trustee.
Blank fields
A number of details remain unspecified. Grayscale has yet to reveal the management fee, the seed investment, the authorized participants or how much WLD each share represents. These entries were left empty and are slated to be completed via subsequent amendments.
Because an S-1 is a preliminary filing, it offers no assurance that the SEC will clear the product or that the fund will ever begin trading.
WLD’s numbers
Following the filing, WLD climbed by as much as 8% within 24 hours, touching an intraday peak of $0.387. The token remained lower on the week and trades roughly 97% beneath its all-time high.
The filing noted that WLD’s circulating supply stood at around 3.5 billion tokens as of June 30, with a combined market value near $1.4 billion. Its 24-hour trading volume came in at about $135.1 million. Citing CoinMarketCap, the filing listed WLD as the 41st largest digital asset by market cap, while The Block’s figures placed it lower — at $1.3 billion and 57th.
Grayscale’s ETF push
The move extends Grayscale’s broader push into single-asset crypto funds. The firm turned its Bitcoin (official site) trust into an ETF after prevailing over the SEC in court, and subsequently rolled out an Ethereum fund.
Since then, it has either filed for or launched products built around XRP, Dogecoin, Solana (official site), Chainlink, Litecoin and Avalanche.
The token
WLD is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum and the native asset of World Network, the digital identity venture built by Tools for Humanity. The company was founded by Sam Altman and Alex Blania.
World combines its World ID proof-of-personhood system with World Chain, the World App and the iris-scanning Orb, which issues IDs and hands out WLD to verified humans.
Grayscale singled out the network’s dependence on biometric data as one of the offering’s chief risks. In multiple jurisdictions, World has faced regulatory scrutiny and privacy complaints over its methods of collecting and managing that data.