Although the Orb and World biometric scanning networks have their roots in crypto tokens, the word “crypto” was not mentioned much during the event. Instead, Altman and Blania emphasized global blockchain service, digital asset management, and virtual communication tools.
Blania claimed during at a press conference that in the future the world hopes to build the “largest financial network” in the world.
In a separate interview with WIRED, Blania said that during regular Sunday meetings at Atlman’s home, the two were inspired by PayPal’s development. Like Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and others once pioneered digital payments and fundamentally changed online commerce — becoming billionaires themselves in the process — the World team has seen it build a similar network of tokens on the distributed network.
The World app is available for free to everyone for now. Eyeball scanning is also free. Tools for Humanity itself is venture-backed, and its foundations in land grabs for the up-to-date identity verification and personal biometrics market focus on scale, scale, scale. Eventually it can make money through processing fees, Blania said.
A spokesperson for the organization told me that most of Tools for Humanity’s expansion plans are currently taking place in locations outside the United States due to unclear cryptocurrency regulations in the United States.
If you’re using Orb and a compatible app in the US, it will scan and save your iris, but won’t generate a crypto token for you.
Two and a half years ago, the Worldcoin project was created was investigated for allegedly fraudulent and exploitative practices in recruiting people for iris scanning. At the time, Blania attributed this accidental behavior to the organization, which was still in the “start-up” phase. In an interview with WIRED, Blania said the company is doing “about a thousand things” to ensure a more exacting approval process. This includes hiring an “operations team” in each market where Świat will be present. He said the World app would feature “explanations” about how the product works.
“Again, there is no data stored in any central place or anything,” Blania said.
In 2023, the governments of Germany, Brazil, India, South Korea and Kenya investigated the service over concerns about how biometric data was stored and used. Kenya has completely suspended registration on Worldcoin. South Korea fined the company. Worldcoin has suspended its own service in India, Brazil and France.
Blania said he believes World will resume in Kenya “sometime soon.”
Asked at the press conference about its emphasis on Latin America as an expansion market, for example through its orb supply partnership with Rappi, Blania disputed the notion that World was prioritizing Latin America over other locations.
“We simply have limited resources and a natural process is occurring,” Blania said. “We have a similar focus on Asia and other places. For example, Argentina is a fast-growing market for us and we are excited about it.
“But the project is literally called The World,” he added.
After the speech, Altman ran to the press room, waved and apologized that he couldn’t stay, then slipped away like a head of state.