Worldcoin's WLD token on Wednesday experienced a sharp 40% increase following the announcement of an extended lockup period for investors and team members.

At the time of writing, the Worldcoin price has reached $3.13—marking a staggering 45% climb since this time yesterday, according to Coingecko data. This is the highest price WLD has seen since in a month.

Tools for Humanity (TFH), a key player in the initial development of Worldcoin, revealed that the unlock schedule for 80% of WLD tokens allocated to its investors and team members would be extended from three to five years.

“These tokens were locked to allow the protocol to mature before these groups would be able to access their token allocation(s),” the company wrote in a press release.

The original plan allowed for the WLD tokens to start unlocking on July 24, 2024, marking the first anniversary of the Worldcoin protocol launch. The original schedule would have unlocked tokens daily over a two-year period and concluded by July 2026.

However, the new plan extends this period, with the tokens unlocking daily over four years, ending by July 2028.

As of now, the extension affects approximately 2 million WLD tokens held by TFH investors and team members, reducing the daily unlock rate by about 40% from the original 3.3 million WLD per day.

The Worldcoin Foundation emphasized that the grants for verified World ID holders remain unaffected by the change.

Currently, over 6 million individuals have orb-verified World IDs, according to the foundation. Those IDs allow them to participate in the Worldcoin network and receive WLD tokens. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who co-founded Worldcoin, has previously said that the goal was for the company to have 1 billion users by 2023.

““Network effects are these very coveted things that are incredibly big,” Worldcoin co-founder Alex Blania told CNBC in 2021. “You see this in Facebook. As soon as you suddenly have a billion people and everyday people holding something like that and using something like that, you as an entrepreneur can build completely new things.”

In its recent press release, the foundation highlighted that more than 211 million WLD tokens have been claimed by World ID holders, making up over 77% of the 275 million WLD in circulation.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.