Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) announced on March 12 that it has secured $125 million in institutional commitments, with the capital deployed into stakes in OpenAI and Beast Industries, the commercial venture led by YouTube creator MrBeast. The round is led by Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR), with ARK Invest and Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, each contributing $25 million. Coinfund, Pantera Capital, and FalconX are also participating. ORBS shares jumped roughly 25% in early trading on the news, with some trackers recording intraday gains near 48%.

Of the total raise, $50 million will go toward OpenAI and $25 million toward Beast Industries. Eightco has framed the strategy as a convergence play across three sectors: artificial intelligence, blockchain-based digital identity through the Worldcoin ecosystem, and digital creator infrastructure. The company originally operated in packaging and logistics before pivoting toward digital assets in 2025.

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Who Is Putting Up the Money

Bitmine, which is committing $75 million as the lead investor, is the world's second-largest Digital Asset Treasury Company by holdings, after MicroStrategy, and the largest of those oriented around Ethereum rather than Bitcoin. As of early March 2026, Bitmine holds approximately 4.535 million ETH tokens and reports combined crypto and cash holdings of roughly $10.3 billion. About 3.04 million of those tokens are currently staked, generating an estimated $176 million in annualised rewards. Bitmine had already invested $200 million into Beast Industries prior to this deal, so its participation in the ORBS round extends a thesis it had already committed to.

Tom Lee, Bitmine's chairman, is co-founder and Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, where he became the first major Wall Street strategist to provide formal Bitcoin research to institutional clients; he previously served as chief US equity strategist at J.P. Morgan. Lee will join the Eightco board as part of the arrangement. He cited what he called "tremendous synergy between Proof of Human, the OpenAI foundational models, and connectivity to the greatest content creator in the world." ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood said ORBS is "taking on a unique initiative at the intersection of AI, blockchain, and creator-driven platforms," while Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi described the asset combination as one where "capital deployed at that convergence has the potential to scale non-linearly." Brett Winton, ARK's Chief Futurist, joins the company as a board advisor. Outgoing chairman Dan Ives steps down as part of the leadership transition.

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Eightco's Existing Treasury and Why WLD Matters

Before this round closed, Eightco already held a notable on-chain position. According to the company's treasury disclosure, its holdings include approximately 277.2 million WLD tokens, roughly 10% of the Worldcoin token's circulating supply, along with 11,068 ETH and $82 million in cash. That WLD holding makes Eightco the largest public-market holder of Worldcoin tokens.

Worldcoin's Proof of Human protocol uses iris-scan biometrics to issue a unique digital identity called World ID. The project now claims more than 38 million verified users globally, up from around 2 million in 2023. Growth momentum has been especially strong in Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South and Southeast Asia, where gaps in formal ID infrastructure have driven demand for alternatives. The protocol has also run into regulatory friction. Authorities in Kenya launched an investigation into its data collection practices, and regulators in parts of Europe and South Korea have imposed bans or restrictions as well, raising broader questions about how biometric data gathered across different jurisdictions is stored and controlled.

For users in those regions who hold or earn WLD through the Worldcoin grant system, the concentration of roughly 10% of circulating supply inside a single publicly traded US company introduces meaningful price and governance sensitivity. Any volatility in ORBS shares or in Bitmine's broader Ethereum book can now influence WLD market dynamics.

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OpenAI Stake and What It Means for Emerging Markets

Eightco's $50 million allocation to OpenAI gives its shareholders indirect listed-equity exposure to a company that recently raised $110 billion in a private round at a $730 billion pre-money valuation. Public market access to OpenAI does not otherwise exist. OpenAI also recently launched EVMbench, a framework for testing whether AI systems can audit and secure Ethereum smart contracts, signalling growing integration between the two sectors.

For developers and businesses in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and similar markets, OpenAI's APIs are already a significant cost dependency. Greater institutional entrenchment of OpenAI through vehicles like Eightco may reinforce the centralised model of AI infrastructure that blockchain-based alternatives are working to challenge.

Payward's involvement carries its own regional relevance. Kraken has been building out stablecoin payment infrastructure and recently formed a tokenisation partnership with Nasdaq while acquiring token management platform Magna. In markets where stablecoin-based remittances are growing fast, including India, Nigeria, and Kenya, Payward's expanding institutional footprint is worth watching.

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What Comes Next

ARK's Big Ideas 2026 report projects the global digital asset market reaching $28 trillion by 2030, with tokenized real-world assets scaling from $22 billion today toward $11 trillion. Whether Eightco's three-way bet on AI, identity, and creator platforms proves prescient or overextended will depend heavily on how those underlying sectors develop, and on whether WLD's growth in emerging markets continues without further regulatory setbacks.