Sam Altman's World eyeball-scanner app aims to be an everything app rivaling Elon's X
Mar 10, 2025
Key Points
- World, Sam Altman's everything app, has scanned 11 million irises through its orb biometric system and pays users $25 per scan in tokens to drive adoption, betting users will need repeated human-verification across services as AI agents proliferate.
- World operates in dozens of countries but avoids the US due to regulatory fears around biometric data collection, though venture investor Ben Horowitz predicts US legalization this year as crypto restrictions ease.
- World's token trades at a $7.5 billion valuation, but the company faces structural risk if adoption slows since its user-payment model depends entirely on the token remaining liquid and valuable.
Summary
Sam Altman's World, formerly Worldcoin, is building an everything app to compete with Elon Musk's X. The business model rests on an iris-scanning system called the orb, which World uses to verify that users are human. As AI agents become harder to distinguish from humans, Altman argues that people will need repeated proof of humanity across payment platforms, social networks, and other services. World has scanned 11 million people and pays roughly $25 per scan in World tokens to drive adoption.
World's strategy mirrors WeChat and other Asian super-apps by bundling cryptocurrency, verified human chat, and microloans into a single platform. The company recently launched a mini app store within its main app to accelerate growth. CEO Alex Blania expects the app will take about 12 months to seriously compete with X, though X currently has far more users and has not yet launched payment services.
The orb is World's core technical differentiator and its primary regulatory vulnerability. The company has scanned millions internationally but does not operate in the US due to concerns about biometric data collection. More than a dozen governments have suspended or examined World's operations. Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz recently predicted World will become legal in the US this year as crypto restrictions loosen, though Blania has not committed to a US launch timeline.
World's token trades at a $7.5 billion fully diluted valuation with an $800 million circulating market cap. The company funds growth by paying users to scan, a mechanism that only works if token price holds. Adoption slowdowns create structural risk to the token's value.
World is attempting three overlapping bets simultaneously: operating anonymous proof-of-human infrastructure as a developer tool, managing a speculative token whose value depends on market price, and building a consumer everything app. Making all three reinforce each other is complex. Western users are unlikely to abandon existing app ecosystems without significant financial incentive, and even then the value proposition depends on the token remaining liquid.
One potential synergy emerged in discussion: Altman could gate unlimited OpenAI model access behind periodic orb verification, preventing bot overuse while driving World adoption. This would tie the infrastructure play directly to consumer demand for a specific service.
The orb will face the same security scrutiny that befell Face ID. Apple's implementation requires eyes to be open as a countermeasure against 3D masks and synthetic imagery. World's defenses against spoofing remain untested publicly.