Worldcoin aims for Facebook-like impact: CEO Alex Blania on global expansion strategies

Worldcoin is back on top of economic charts after global sanctions for its orbs product. Speaking during Wednesday’s Korea Blockchain Week 2024 event in Seoul, Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania said that Worldcoin’s current focus remains the mass distribution of iris-scanning “Orbs.” 

Worldcoin is a project of Tools for Humanity, which was co-founded by Blania and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The initiative issues “World IDs” to those who scan their irises on an Orb device as proof of humanness, with the goal of protecting people from the potential detrimental effects of AI.

Those who sign up for the project’s provisions receive WLD crypto, and according to its website, Worldcoin has over 6.5 million verified World IDs in more than 160 countries. Alex Blania spoke of the future of Worldcoin in Seoul, stating:

I think fundamentally, similar to other networks that we have seen emerge over the last couple of decades like Paypal or even social networks like Facebook, they only become useful once they are at scale […] So everything we care about at this point is distribution around the world and the number of users that are verified and using the service.

Alex Blania 

The press coverage has had a positive impact on WLD’s price. According to Binance’s on-chain data, the live price of WLD is $1.416228 on the WLD/USD pair, with a current market cap of $584.14 million. The coin’s 24-hour trading volume is $97.25 million USD. WLD is up 3.65% in the last 24 hours, with a circulating supply of 412.46 million.

Worldcoin’s Blania shares details about next-generation Orbs

Blania specified at KBW2024 that the project will disclose “exciting updates” concerning the next-generation Orb device in the weeks to come.

The only new thing I can share for updates here is that it’s going to be around operational models […] So the way these devices will be used — there will be changes, there will be tweaks that I think might turn out to be relatively impactful.

Alex Blania

The Worldcoin CEO added that the project is in discussions with South Korean gaming industry players regarding potential collaborations.

Worldcoin is also preparing to launch its own Layer-2 network, World Chain, and has recently announced partnerships with blockchain development firms Hyperlane, Moralis, and others to simplify the new mainnet for users.

It’s an Optimism super-chain, similar to Coinbase’s Base […] And the reason [for launch] is that we already have too much scale for Optimism mainnet. So we went from Polygon to Optimism mainnet and are launching our Layer 2.

Alex Blania

Meanwhile, regulators in several jurisdictions, including Columbia, Spain, and South Korea, have criticized Worldcoin’s acquisition of human iris data as a potential violation of privacy. In May, Hong Kong authorities ordered Worldcoin to halt its local operations.