Hajra Naz
World—the biometric ID verification project co-founded by Sam Altman—has released a major update to its app, introducing several new features, including encrypted messaging and expanded crypto payment tools that work much like Venmo.
Created in 2019 by Tools for Humanity and first launched in 2023, World aims to build a digital “proof of human” system in an era where AI-generated fakes are increasingly indistinguishable from real people. The company’s goal is to establish a privacy-preserving way to confirm who’s actually human—and who isn’t.
At a small event on Thursday inside World’s San Francisco headquarters, Altman and co-founder/CEO Alex Blania introduced the revamped app—dubbed internally as a “super app”—before handing things over to the product team for a deeper dive. Altman explained that the idea behind World emerged from early conversations with Blania about building a new economic framework rooted in web3 principles. “It’s really hard to both identify unique people and do that in a privacy-preserving way,” he said.
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One of the flagship additions is World Chat, an end-to-end encrypted messenger designed to strengthen identity verification. The chat interface uses color-coded bubbles to show whether someone has been verified by World’s system, giving users a clearer sense of who they’re talking to. The company compares its encryption to that of Signal. A limited beta of World Chat rolled out in March.
The second major update is an enhanced crypto payment system. While the World App has long worked as a basic digital wallet, the new version broadens its capabilities significantly. Users can now send and receive cryptocurrency, route paychecks into virtual bank accounts within the app, and transfer funds from traditional bank accounts—all of which can be converted into crypto. Verification is not required to use these financial features.
Tiago Sada, World’s chief product officer, told the team to build a chat to make the app feel more interactive and social. “What we kept hearing from people is that they wanted a more social World app,” he said. The goal, he added, was to deliver something as feature-rich as WhatsApp or Telegram, but with the security posture of Signal.
World—formerly known as Worldcoin—relies on a distinctive authentication step. Users visit a company location to have their eyes scanned by the Orb, a polished metal device that turns a person’s iris pattern into a unique, encrypted identifier. This World ID can then be used across the app’s ecosystem of services.
The new social features are clearly meant to help World scale its user base. That’s critical, given that the project’s biggest challenge is convincing masses of people to verify their identity. Altman has said he hopes to reach a billion verified users someday, but so far, the company has scanned fewer than 20 million people.
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To make verification less intimidating—and more accessible—Tools for Humanity has already begun modernizing the process. In April, it announced the Orb Mini, a handheld device that lets users scan themselves at home rather than visiting an office.
Blania has said the long-term plan is to turn Orb Minis into mobile point-of-sale devices or license the ID-scanning tech to hardware manufacturers. Either step could dramatically lower the friction of verification, opening the door to broader global adoption.
