Dan Ives to Join Firm Focused on Acquiring Altman-Backed Worldcoin

Dan Ives, the high-profile tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, is joining a new company focused on accumulating Worldcoin, the cryptocurrency launched by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Wedbush’s global head of technology research is now chairman of the board of directors at Eightco Holdings (OCTO), the tiny Nasdaq-listed firm said Monday. Eightco said it is raising around $250 million from a private placement “to implement the first-of-its-kind Worldcoin treasury strategy.” 

It has also raised $20 million from the sale of shares to BitMine, the ether accumulator whose chairman is Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee.

“Worldcoin will serve as the Company’s primary treasury reserve asset,” Eightco said, adding that it plans to change its stock symbol to “ORBS” from “OCTO” once the placing of shares closes on Sept. 11. 

Both Ives and Lee are well-known Wall Street analysts and stocks forecasters. World ID, the crypto project that uses Worldcoin, scans irises to create a digital ID through a custom biometric device called the Orb, allowing “users to verify their humanness online,” a growing concern as AI increasingly replicates human activity. Eightco, meanwhile, is the latest of a slew of companies accumulating crypto as they aim to replicate the approach deployed by Strategy (MSTR), the bitcoin proxy formerly known as MicroStrategy.

Eightco’s market value soared to over $119 million on the news Monday.