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Worldcoin, Sam Altman’s crypto project, is building a Layer-2 chain
OpenAI founder Sam Altman’s retina-scanning crypto startup Worldcoin is getting its own blockchain.
world chain, a level 2 network on Ethereum, scheduled to release this summer, will grant special treatment to users who scan their eyes in exchange for a “World ID” digital passport. It will build on Worldcoin’s perennial proposition as a network for “verified humans” – an ecosystem designed to filter out robots in the increasingly mysterious age of artificial intelligence.
Until now, Worldcoin’s World ID protocol has functioned simply as a decentralized application, essentially just a collection of smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. The decision to start an independent chain could give developers more control over the project with more options, potentially reducing costs for users as well.
“Verified humans will enjoy priority block space over robots and some free gas,” Tools For Humanity, the team behind Worldcoin, said in a statement. “It will be a way for developers to reach millions of users with apps focused on real-world utility.”
World Chain will be built on the OP Stack, a blockchain building framework that has become a popular choice among bootstrappers and was used by Coinbase to build its Base network. Like other layer 2 “rollups,” the chain will bundle user transactions and transmit them to Ethereum where they will be permanently cemented. The setup will allow World Chain to offer users cheaper fees than they would get by transacting directly on Ethereum.
“All these blockchains are working hard to reduce gas fees so the network is more accessible, but that means you start to see a lot more bot activity,” said Tiago Sada, head of product, engineering and design at Tools For Humanity, the development company behind Worldcoin. “This ends up driving up fees for humans and the networks get clogged.”
“I would say it’s pretty clear that between 50 and 90% of on-chain transactions are automated,” Sada explained. “World Chain will be open and permissionless. Anyone, including bots, will be able to submit transactions. But transactions submitted by verified humans will have priority block space, so they will be processed faster.”
Worldcoin’s claim to fame (or notoriety, depending on your perspective) is his “sphere”: a bowling ball-shaped chrome sphere that contains a lens for scanning your eyeballs. The sphere differentiates Worldcoin from other Internet services by ensuring that anyone who gets an account is a human – not a robot – and eliminates the possibility of two accounts being owned by the same person.
The project’s emphasis on “personality test” ties back to potential use cases as AI applications proliferate.
Tools For Humanity took its sphere on the road to conduct in-person scans at conferences, events and pop-up shops. According to the project, more than 10 million users in more than 167 countries were involved.
The Worldcoin experience today exists primarily internally the worldwide application, a crypto wallet that integrates with some popular protocols and offers special features to orbitally scanned users. The app currently connects to the OP Chain, the layer 2 Ethereum blockchain that originated the OP Stack.
Worldcoin is the the second largest protocol on the OP chain by transaction volume and its WLD token has the largest market cap on the chain behind ETH and the network’s native OP coin.
By moving to a network entirely built by Worldcoin, “it just allows us to keep user onboarding at the scale that we are at,” Sada said. “For existing users, it allows us to offer them faster transactions and cheaper transactions.”
Wolrdcoin’s initial proposal revolved around universal basic income: people who scanned their retinas in certain regions (excluding the US and some other countries) were given a share of WLD tokens and a verified World ID account. Over time, as artificial intelligence began to reshape the Internet, Worldcoin’s financial ambitions became subordinated, to some extent, to its broader goals related to digital identity.
With the new network, Worldcoin will integrate bot checking directly into its DNA, allowing other wallet apps beyond World App to integrate World ID. World Chain also turns WLD into a first-class currency alongside ether (ETH), meaning both assets will be usable to pay network fees.
World Chain arrives after a tumultuous year for Worldcoin faced criticism almost immediately after its debut in 2021. Some cryptocurrency advocates have raised privacy concerns: The eyeball scanning sphere brings with it a creepy factor that Worldcoin has struggled to shed, despite Worldcoin’s creators’ insistence that the hardware rigorously encrypts biometric data.
There was also a unflattering exposure from MIT Technology Review that Tools for Humanity had exploited underfunded communities during its launch, dangling the prospect of free tokens in exchange for signups during its tests. According to the article, Worldcoin engaged in “deceptive marketing practices, collected more personal data than acknowledged, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent.”
With the boom in AI and the recovery of the cryptocurrency market, the Worldcoin team has released a series of updates and integrations. There are new ways to use Worldcoin that don’t require eye scans, and there is new encryption technology aimed at addressing some of the privacy concerns that have dogged the project since its inception.
The changes have helped Worldcoin grow despite its many naysayers, reaching more than 70 million transactions in total, according to the project most recent data. Even Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who delivered a point-by-point criticism of Worldcoin in one of his blog posts – praised the project for “doing a good job of taking privacy criticisms seriously and designing their system so that data is increasingly minimal” in a March X post.