World Network (WLD) was one of the cryptocurrency market's biggest gainers on Wednesday amid the hype surrounding OpenAI's ambitious $500 billion Project Stargate.

What happened: WLD, the native currency of the decentralized identity verification project, surged over 4%, becoming the third best-performing cryptocurrency over the last 24 hours.

The coin’s trading volume surged 22.50% to $819 million, indicating significant buying pressure.

The rally defied downturns in market heavyweights like Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), which fell 2.71% and 3.19%, respectively.

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Why It Matters: The uptick comes after President Donald Trump announced an AI infrastructure joint venture in the U.S., with OpenAI, a leading AI research company, taking operational responsibilities.

Note that the company's CEO and co-founder, Sam Altman, launched the World Network project, formerly Worldcoin, last year. The coin has rallied in response to developments around Altman and OpenAI in the past as well.

The project collects people's irises to authenticate their humanness and creates a digital ID, thereby making them eligible to receive free WLD tokens.

However, the project has faced government scrutiny over concerns around personal data privacy. The project has been banned in Hong Kong, Kenya, and Spain.

Price Action: At the time of writing, WLD was exchanging hands at $2.25, up 4.31% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Year-to-date, the cryptocurrency has gained 7.56%. Last year, it recorded a drop of 42%. 

Image by CryptoFX on Shutterstock

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