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World — the eye-scanning crypto/human-verification product from Tools for Humanity, the startup founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and physics researcher Alex Blania — is officially coming to America (excluding New York) after a global rollout… and is getting an Apple Store-like treatment.
The Big Picture: In the age of AI, determining whether someone online is human — and avoiding digital scams — is only going to get harder… which is why Altman (who’s partly responsible for this problem) sees World as a necessary service. Just how lucrative the venture becomes will depend on how comfortable people feel uploading their biometric data into the company’s Orb device.
Behind the Scans: World made a major debut in America yesterday.
- World is launching in six stores nationwide, where people can come in and have their irises scanned, “personhood” verified, and a unique ID stored on the blockchain. It’ll also be available in Razer stores and may eventually roll out to college campuses and cafes.
- It’s opening an Orb manufacturing facility in Texas with the plan to get 7,500 Orbs out to the American public by the end of the year.
- It also wants to give people their own personal Orbs, so it’s developing an Orb mini that is hilariously not in the shape of an Orb. That should be ready to ship by early next year.
- As part of the Orb rollout, the company has inked deals with Visa and Stripe, so people can use the crypto associated with the device at retailers, and a partnership with Match Group to verify people for dating apps.
The Future: World has been through several iterations since launching in 2023 as a crypto project called Worldcoin. Although met with a lot of controversy (data breaches, bans in countries like Spain and Brazil), the company has raised $240 million in VC funding, and users have hit 26 million (with 12 million signing up via the Orb). The company’s goal is to eventually make money via fees paid by apps that want to ensure their users are verified humans, not bots — like, hypothetically, Ticketmaster requiring each ticket sold to be connected to a World ID.
One day, society may be split between those who are Orb-verified and those who aren’t.
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