With the arrival of the AI era, will World, which focuses deeply on the AI identity layer, become the next "tenfold coin"?

Written by: Michael Nadeau, The DeFi Report

Translated by: Glendon, Techub News

The internet is undergoing three key evolutionary stages: 1) Human-led phase (early internet form); 2) Robot-saturated phase (current development); 3) Human-verifiable phase (future direction).

The digital identity project World, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is dedicated to becoming the infrastructure for the third stage. Its identity verification system aims to strengthen internet services against robot interference and support AI agent services deeply linked to “real person verified accounts.” Yesterday, World Chain announced via tweet that it will adopt the open permissionless standard ERC-8183 for intelligent agent commercial applications. So, with the advent of the AI era, does WLD have the potential to become a “ten-bagger”?

Products and Business Model

World Chain’s core product is “Proof of Human.” Its goal is to create an on-chain wallet ID linked to each person’s biometric information.

This will allow users to use an anonymous wallet (a standard blockchain address) and, when needed, prove they are real humans through zero-knowledge proof technology, selectively revealing important personal information (such as nationality, date of birth, social security number, etc.). As we enter an era of highly developed artificial intelligence, this technology could play a significant role in solving issues like fake accounts, bots, and witch attacks.

Potential Use Cases

• Internet and social media platforms. Companies like Twitter/X have started charging users annual fees for account verification, yet these accounts still interact with various bots and spam within the same app. The World Identity system (World ID) might solve this problem.

• Instant messaging apps, e-commerce sites, and online games (already partnered with Razer).

• Banking, payments, and government services (including voting) (already partnered with Visa and Stripe).

• Online dating platforms. The project is currently collaborating with Match Group on a pilot.

• Prediction markets.

• AI agents linked to verified human users. This week, World announced a partnership with Coinbase.

Real-World Example

Suppose X platform believes bots have severely damaged user experience and decides to launch a “Human Verification Version” service. Additionally, X wants to enable global peer-to-peer payments within the app. The possible implementation process could be:

• X signs a commercial contract with Tools for Humanity (World’s legal entity), agreeing that each user identity verified via World ID will cost X $0.10 (paid in WLD tokens, free for users).

• X launches “Real Human Verified X.”

• Users enter settings, complete World ID verification.

• X marks the account as “Verified Human.”

If X later integrates payment features, after verification, a linked on-chain wallet can be created for the user. This wallet settles on World Chain, and users interact with it through the X app without directly touching the blockchain.

X’s Value

With World ID and World Chain, X can offer:

• A “Real Human Only” version of X.

• A global payment network supporting low-cost in-app payments, tipping, etc., with significantly reduced fraud risk.

• The ability to bind AI agents to their human owners.

• Direct distribution of ad revenue to content creators on X.

• Resistance to spam growth + more precise advertising (advertisers willing to pay more for higher-quality exposure).

Through this architecture, X does not need to build an identity system from scratch but can directly access the network of globally verified users on World as an identity layer, while keeping the underlying payment channels open.

OpenAI

As is well known, Sam Altman is also a founder of OpenAI and World. Although OpenAI has not officially announced a merger with World, it is increasingly clear that both are working toward the same core issue: how to distinguish humans from AI agents at internet scale.

OpenAI has begun implementing identity verification mechanisms and exploring biometric-based “Proof of Personhood,” while World is building a global, reusable credential system designed for this purpose. We also speculate that OpenAI might leverage World to bind verified humans to their AI agents, making ownership of AI agents transparent.

Key Points

World’s current focus is on expanding the network of verified human users globally. This network will become their core product for selling to native internet applications like X. How is this progress?

World App / World ID Key Metrics and Progress

• World ID (mobile app downloads): 38.5 million (up from 37.4 million last November)

• Verified World IDs (completed app download and iris scan via Orb): 17.9 million (up from 17.5 million last November)

• Number of integrated applications: 574 (up from 444 last November)

• Global Orb devices: 10,108 (up significantly from 7,519 last November); currently 718 active Orb service points across 47 countries (slightly down from 766 last November).

Growth has slowed noticeably over the past six months. The previous target was 50 million verified users by the end of 2025, but current progress is far from that.

Their future strategy is to make identity verification as convenient and ubiquitous as “using an ATM.” To accelerate this, World launched a new device, “Orb Mini,” deployable in retail stores, events, corporate offices, campuses, and more.

World Chain Financials

On-chain fee revenue

Data source: The DeFi Report

Recent 30-day performance:

• Average: $306

• Peak: $3,454 (down 91%)

From an on-chain profit perspective (user fees minus underlying L1 network costs), World Chain’s total revenue over the past six months is $115,000.

Key Points

The chain itself is not the core product; it’s infrastructure for distributing and utilizing the identity layer. However, if in the future many applications natively run on World Chain, on-chain fees could become significant.

World Chain Fundamentals

Active Addresses

Since October last year, amid a market shift toward risk aversion, active addresses have declined sharply. Over the past 30 days, the average daily active addresses are 183,000, down 65% year-over-year.

Transaction Volume

In the past 30 days, daily transaction volume reached 1.5 million, up 103% year-over-year. For comparison, Base (a top Layer 2 network) averages 10.6 million transactions daily, and Arbitrum about 4 million.

DEX Trading Volume

Over the past 30 days, daily DEX trading volume on World Chain was $552,000, down 4.1% year-over-year and 88% from Q4 peak levels. Currently, 100% of DEX trading volume on World Chain comes from Uniswap deployments.

Account Abstraction Transactions

Currently, 574 “mini applications” are accessible via the World app.

Data shows that 60% of transactions on World Chain are “account abstraction” transactions—meaning users can perform operations with a tap on their phone without managing wallets or using separate browsers.

Official Asset Bridge Value

The total value of assets bridged to World Chain is $371 million, a sharp decline from $1.26 billion last year. We believe this drop mainly results from the decline in WLD token price, which accounts for 93% of cross-chain assets.

World Chain Token Economics

Max Supply: 10 billion tokens (capped in 2038; potential inflation of 1.5% annually thereafter)

Circulating Supply: 2.93 billion tokens (29.3% of total supply)

Token Distribution and Unlock Schedule

• Community: 75%

• Investors: 13.6% (unlocked starting July 24, 2024, over 5 years with 1-year lock-up; 49.7% of investor tokens unlocked so far)

• Development Team: 11.1% (unlocked starting July 24, 2024, over 5 years with 1-year lock-up; 50% of team tokens unlocked so far)

• Reserves: 0.3%

Token Unlocks by Year-End

By the end of this year, 433 million investor and team tokens will be unlocked. At current token price of $0.39, this equates to a unlock market cap of approximately $168 million.

Note that although a large portion of community tokens are technically unlocked, they have not yet entered circulation (these tokens can be used for incentives as needed).

Key Points

World is a typical case: the project has promising business prospects, but its tokenomics design has clear flaws. Investors should be aware that the team and early investors acquired tokens at prices far below current market prices (current prices have fallen 96.7% from cycle highs). From what we understand, investors participating in the Series A round in 2021 had a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $1 billion; Series B investors’ FDV was $3 billion.

Notably, in May 2025, the project raised an additional $135 million via direct sales (investors include a16z and Bain Capital Crypto), with a fully diluted valuation of about $4 billion, similar to current levels.

Risks

Risks facing World include:

• Iris scanning: considered invasive; if this cannot be overcome, it may hinder user adoption.

• Centralization concerns: crypto-native users may not trust World’s claims without external verification. If it’s proven they lied (which would be exposed), the project could fail completely. We tend to believe they are honest (supported by audits), but market trust takes time to build.

• Government regulation: World faces significant regulatory challenges in multiple countries, mainly due to concerns over biometric data collection, user consent mechanisms, and data privacy.

• Team execution capability: long-term success depends on precise execution in critical areas—hardware manufacturing, large-scale deployment, global registration incentives, building an app store ecosystem, integration with key internet infrastructure and mainstream apps, operating a Layer 2 blockchain, and maintaining compliance. These are high hurdles.

• Low token circulation / large unlock risk: as noted, 433 million tokens will unlock this year. If demand for World ID and its tokens does not materialize, it could pressure the token price. However, current valuation is not high relative to the valuation at token acquisition.

Conclusion

We believe World has the following advantages:

• The only human identity verification solution in the next-generation internet.

• A mission-driven, goal-oriented team.

• Sufficient capital support and a strong lineup of strategic investors (including a16z, Bain Capital, Blockchain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Reid Hoffman), with $435 million raised across multiple funding rounds.

Meanwhile, its hardware device (Orb) deployment and user adoption remain slow. So far, the team has not announced any large-scale Web2 partnerships beyond some pilot projects and initial integrations.

Although they are actively promoting a decentralized deployment of the verification network—placing Orb devices in retail stores and partner locations—mainstream adoption has not yet been achieved. Therefore, we question whether the project has truly achieved product/market fit at this stage.

In summary, we see WLD as a high-risk, high-reward project with the potential to become a “ten-bagger.” We traded this asset in the summer and exited in September with a 53% profit. Currently, WLD is on our watchlist.