Worldcoin

Worldcoin aims to build the world’s largest identity and financial network as a public utility, giving ownership to everyone.

Its ecosystem revolves around World ID, a privacy-preserving global identity network which enables users to verify their humanness online (“Proof of Personhood”) while maintaining their privacy through zero-knowledge proofs.

The WLD token contract is deployed on Ethereum Mainnet and the ERC-20 token is bridged to the Optimism “layer 2” network.

Worldcoin was founded by Sam Altman, Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern (Max Novendstern left the project in July 2021). The most well-known of the co-founders, Sam Altman, is also the co-founder and current CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator, a startup incubator. Initial research and development for the Worldcoin project was conducted by Tools for Humanity (TFH) and other partners.

Worldcoin launched out of beta on July 24, 2023.

To engage with the Worldcoin protocol, individuals must first download World App, the first wallet app that supports the creation of a World ID. Individuals visit a physical imaging device called the Orb to get their World ID Orb-verified. Most Orbs are operated by a network of independent local businesses called Orb Operators. The Orb uses multispectral sensors to verify humanness and uniqueness, with all images being promptly deleted on-device per default (absent explicit consent to Data Custody).

The WLD token is designed as a utility token with governance properties, empowering users by giving them a say over the future of the protocol. Beyond conventional “one-token-one-vote” governance mechanisms, the introduction of World ID paves the way for “one-person-one-vote” mechanisms. These two mechanisms can also be combined to enable new ways of governance.