Overview

World, also known as World Network, is a humanity verification project and financial network. It was developed and launched as the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin. Among other organizations, contributors to the project include Tools for Humanity, a company founded in 2019 by Sam Altman, Max Novendstern, and Alex Blania. World's stated mission is to provide a reliable and anonymous way to authenticate humans online, which it calls World ID. After accumulating $250 million in funding from venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, it launched out of beta in 2023.

The project was rebranded as World in 2024, at which point it had partnerships with the governments of Taiwan and Malaysia concerning digital identity verification. To join the network, new users complete biometric verification by the company's Orb hardware, with users in some locales then receiving Worldcoin (WLD), a digital token. This collection process has caused privacy concerns in multiple countries.

Founding and beta (2019–2023)

World, originally called Worldcoin, is a project started by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Max Novendstern, and Alex Blania and based in San Francisco and Munich. Developed by the private company Tools for Humanity (TFH) in 2019, World outlined a three-part mission to create a global ID, a global currency, and an app enabling payment with World's own digital token as well as other digital assets and fiat currencies. It began developing World ID, an open-source protocol it describes as a digital passport for confirming someone is a unique human.

The project also began developing the cryptocurrency token WLD, or Worldcoin. It described WLD as part of a larger effort to drive a more unified and equitable global economy, with the token to be a Layer 2 Ethereum-based cryptocurrency that leverages the security of the Ethereum blockchain while having its own economy. In October 2021, the project raised an initial $25 million by investors such as Andreessen Horowitz. Within six months, an additional $100 million was raised, pushing the token's total value up to $3 billion.

Ten percent of all WLD tokens were reserved for World investors, while another 11.1 percent were reserved for employees at contributing organizations.

Official launch (2023–2025)

World launched out of beta on July 24, 2023 with 11 orb locations in the U.S. and plans for 35 cities in 20 countries. WLD tokens became freely tradable on several cryptocurrency exchanges, though not in the U.S. Users in locations such as London received WLD tokens for being verified. In May 2024, World switched its data storage to a secure multi-party computation (MPC) encryption method, stating the move was part of its efforts to comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation.

According to World, after stored iris codes were migrated to their new SMPC system, the old codes were then deleted. In September 2024, World introduced the facial comparison program Face Auth, a competitor to Apple's Face ID software. In October 2024, World launched a new edition of Orb, its eye-scanning hardware. It also launched Deep Face, an anti-deepfake feature for users with World IDs. By late 2024, World had partnerships with Taiwan and Malaysia concerning digital identity verification. World was also looking into verifying users with passports instead of iris verification.

Design

World hopes to provide a reliable way to authenticate humans online via World ID accounts, to counter bots and fake virtual identities facilitated by artificial intelligence. In 2025, World's website featured several products: its Worldcoin digital token, its World Chain blockchain, its World App portal, and its anonymous "proof of human" World ID.

To create a user's World ID, a device called the Orb takes images of a user's face and eyes to confirm they are unique and human. According to Tools for Humanity, iris codes are used because irises have more randomness and complexity than fingerprints or faces, and are also less susceptible to change. After biometrics are verified, World states the "data is encrypted, sent to [the user's] phone and permanently deleted from the [Orb device]," and a unique identifier is created to represent the user on the World blockchain.

Legal and regulatory issues

The currency has been suspended, formally investigated, or delayed in multiple countries because of concerns by national regulators regarding privacy and potential use of the cryptocurrency tokens for fraud.

In July of 2023, the data protection authorities in both France (CNIL) and the United Kingdom (Information Commissioner's Office) announced they had opened investigations into World over privacy concerns. In addition, regulators in Bavaria and South Korea also announced they had opened investigations.

In 2023, World also stopped offline verifications in India and suspended operations in Brazil. In August 2023, Kenya, one of the first countries where World was launched, suspended its enrollment in the country, citing security, privacy and financial concerns. World was previously ordered to stop collecting personal data by the Kenyan Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, but did not comply. In June 2024, the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations dropped the investigation, allowing operations to resume.

However, in May 2025, Kenya ordered World to delete all biometric data it had collected in the country.