We have been spending a lot of our time researching how blockchain fits into a world with accelerating AI adoption. Proof-of-human is one area that stands out. In a future world where AI agents and AI generated content become increasingly ubiquitous, the demand to know what is truly human and distinguish from bots will increase. For many things we are okay with (and may even prefer) interacting with bots. However, for key use cases, including advertising, dating, or government services, there is an acute need to authenticate unique humans. What better way to verifiably authenticate that personhood online, in a global and censorship-resistant way, than using a permissionless blockchain?

 

World (formerly known as Worldcoin) is a blockchain protocol that is scaling a global, privacy-preserving identity and financial network using the concept of “Proof of Personhood”, which refers to proving an individual is both human and unique. World authenticates users as unique humans after they undergo an iris scan with a World Orb, a biometric imaging hardware device, and issues each unique human a World ID on Worldchain, the World blockchain. Tools For Humanity (“TFH”) is the software company developing World’s technology and signing up people across the globe. WLD is the native token of the World protocol. It is expected to be used as a global internet currency and for governance of the World protocol.

 

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is also co-founder of World. He co-founded World as a tool he saw necessary in the future so humans stayed special and central in a world where the internet was going to have lots of AI driven content. If broadly adopted, World could offer a scalable, reliable global solution to distinguish humans from AI online while safeguarding user privacy. This capability carries profound implications as World can expand economic opportunities and facilitate global democratic processes.

 

It has been a privilege for our team to get to meet Sam Altman, TFH CEO Alex Blania and the rest of the team since we invested last year. World hosted its latest public event on April 30, where they gave investors and those interested in the space deeper insight into World’s product roadmap and growth strategy. Coming out of that, we thought it was a compelling time to share our investment thesis, how it is coming to life, and some of the things we’re excitedly looking forward to.

 

Investment Thesis Summary

 

We believe World’s proof-of-human solution will become critical infrastructure in a future where humans and AI coexist. Our investment thesis in World boils down to a few reasons:

 

Proof of Human as a Critical Tool: As autonomous AI agents and AI-generated content proliferate, verifying unique humans becomes essential for commercial and governmental applications. In a black swan scenario where AI-driven productivity displaces human labor, governments may need to implement UBI programs and find Proof of Personhood indispensable.

Superior Verification Solution: World’s biometric solution secured by blockchain is better than existing government and private identity solutions because it transcends jurisdictional boundaries and is censorship resistant.

Early Signs of Growth: Since World’s inception less than two years ago, the protocol has collectively authenticated over 12 million unique individuals. Worldchain has also demonstrated promising adoption, adding approximately 45,000 new wallets daily.

Experienced Leadership: World benefits uniquely from the involvement of Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI. Altman’s global influence and credibility are a powerful tool in establishing trust with international government agencies and facilitating strategic partnerships.

 

World ID Use Cases and Future Potential

 

We believe proof-of-human is critical for many use cases and World ID could have meaningful commercial potential at scale. In particular, advertising and government services stand out as large areas that stand to benefit. Given the size of these end markets – advertising is a trillion-dollar market and government services is 25% of US GDP – even adding a modest amount of value through a unique humanness solution represents a significant growth opportunity for World.

 

Near-term, World has identified gaming, dating, and social networking as three core use cases where user experience can be significantly enhanced by differentiating unique humans from bots. The protocol has established partnerships in each of these areas:

 

Gaming: Razer is launching Razer ID in conjunction with World into its platform to verify real human players, enhancing fairness in competitive gaming. Razer ID will debut in the game Tokyo Beast in Q2 2025.

Dating: World has recently announced its partnership with Match Group, the global leader in online dating, to enable users to verify profiles via World ID. This initiative aims to reduce bots and fake accounts, improving user safety and trust.

Social: World introduced World Chat on the World App to enable verified humans to connect and communicate securely. World is also currently in conversations with several large social media platforms for partnerships.

Advertising: Japan’s second-largest marketing agency, Hakuhodo, plans to leverage World ID to build a fraud-proof advertising network, targeting the elimination of bot-driven ad fraud.

 

World’s Mini App ecosystem plays a crucial role in unlocking new possibilities and use cases for World ID. Currently, over 300 Mini Apps are available on the World App, all capable of leveraging World ID and the World App wallet, fostering creative experimentation and concept validation. While the potential for future use cases remains largely untapped, early experiments show promise:

 

Kalshi: A prediction market Mini App that allows authenticated humans to bet on real-world events. The platform’s trustworthiness increases as more verified users participate, creating deeper and more diverse markets that help the public better understand popular opinion.

Aqua: This Mini App uses World ID to measure online engagement exclusively from verified humans, ensuring content creators are compensated based on genuine user interactions rather than bot activity.

Worldle: This Mini App is a Wordle competition where authenticated humans can wager and compete against each other.

 

World Chain itself is built in a way that provides unique benefits to verified humans. Verified humans have their gas fees subsidized by fees collected from non-verified humans (i.e. bots), a way of making sure humans benefit from the increased commercial activity by on-chain agents.

 

Distribution Strategy

 

World is a network, and networks become more valuable with more users. Today World’s network is in its infancy at just 12 million verified humans, so user acquisition is the highest priority. The free token incentives are a nice incentive and harkens back to PayPal’s $10 growth hack in its early days. However, because the initial authentication requires an in-person verification, the bottleneck to date has actually been physical distribution. The key to scaling World to the next 100 million users lies in making the Orb more scalable in both manufacturing and distribution across multiple jurisdictions.

 

To this end, World is ramping up Orb production to ensure the device becomes as ubiquitous as an ATM and widely accessible. The team has developed a self-serve Orb that users can operate independently without staff assistance, enabling large-scale global deployment while reducing operational costs. In parallel, World is developing Orb Mini, a more portable verification device with a smartphone-like form factor. Orb Mini is expected to be deployed by 2026 and could be instrumental in scaling the network beyond 100 million users.

 

After increasing physical distribution and economic incentives to drive verifications, the next challenge is building utility to increase retention. Building out World’s Mini App ecosystem is critical to user growth and engagement. With over 55 million app downloads to date, this ecosystem is becoming the foundation of daily user interaction and offers a scalable lever to accelerate user acquisition. We’re starting to see the emergence of some interesting apps, ranging from DeFi to gaming to social media.

 

We believe this year’s launch in the US is a step-function unlock. World announced its launch in the US in May, starting with six cities (Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville and San Francisco). World projects deploying 7,500 Orbs across the United States alone by the end of 2025. They expect to establish marketing activations with retail partnerships, such that World devices will be available at high density shopping locations across the country.

 

World has a goal to verify 50 million people by the end of this year, with a long-term goal of signing up every unique human. You can find a location to scan yourself here.

 

World recently launched its first commercial in the US titled “Human and You Know It”. Check it out here.

 

Government Relationships

 

Many people still have the impression that World circumvents privacy laws and government regulations. While this couldn’t be further from the truth, this reputation is based on historical regulatory action. Wary government regulators have posed challenges for World’s expansion into certain markets. World has previously been asked to pause operations in jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Kenya, Spain, and Portugal.

 

More recently, there has been a positive shift in regulatory attitudes. There are a number of factors driving this, from TFH’s increased education efforts and engagement with local authorities, to the accelerating adoption of AI and the recognition amongst everyone the need to be open-minded to learn and adapt to a new world paradigm.

 

In recent months, World has made significant strides in collaborating with local governments to support Orb deployments in new regions, particularly in digitally progressive Southeast Asian markets like Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Before entering these markets, World proactively engages with government officials to ensure a clear understanding of the platform’s technology and embedded privacy safeguards. To further address regulatory requirements around data privacy and storage, World has established a leading legal and public policy team.

 

One great example is World’s partnership with Malaysia’s MyEG, a government service provider that offers in-person services such as driver’s license exams and ID card applications and renewals. Orb verifications are available at MyEG locations, demonstrating World’s ability to embed its technology within existing government infrastructure.

 

Commercialization and Upside Potential

 

At its event, “At Last”, World began to outline preliminary plans for how it expects to commercialize World ID. At the most basic level, there are the transaction fees collected on World Chain. Another is the introduction of World ID Fees, charged to applications utilizing World ID services. The fees are divided into two components: credential fees, retained by credential issuers, and protocol fees, which accrue back to World ID itself. As fundamental investors, we are encouraged by World’s announcement of the value accrual plan, because it reflects feedback that the World protocol is successfully delivering excess value to its stakeholders.

 

One can use reasonable assumptions to build a compelling investment case. If World can authenticate 5 billion unique humans, approximately 60% of the global population, and achieve $5 annual revenue per verified individual, the protocol would generate $25 billion in run-rate revenue. $5 per person is less than 5 basis points of global GDP per capita, which seems like a reasonable capture rate given how widely World’s technology could be used across huge markets like advertising. At a reasonable growth multiple, that $25bn run-rate revenue, with the nearly 100% free-cash-flow conversion, could imply a market capitalization of over $250bn.

 

Conclusion

 

We are highly optimistic about the developments underway by the World team, as the protocol is uniquely positioned to address the critical challenge of verifying unique human identities in an era of rapidly accelerating AI proliferation. This opportunity is especially timely given shifting government attitudes toward digital identity and World’s recent expansion into the U.S. market, alongside growing adoption of World ID across diverse regions and use cases.

 

There is certainly a long road getting from here to World’s long-term vision. There are reasonable questions to be asked around whether it can scale fast enough, the effectiveness of its growth incentive mechanism, and the reflexive impact of its volatile cryptocurrency. World is also not the only one that recognizes humanness as a key primitive, and most of the big tech companies are looking at their own identity solutions. While a decentralized censorship resistant solution is better in theory, that does not necessarily mean it has to win out in practice.

 

As AI continues to grow in prevalence, there is increasing recognition that World’s mission to build a robust and secure identity verification solution is important and worth pursuing. The Wall Street Journal (link) and Time magazine (link) have published profiles on World in the past few months, emphasizing its critical role in a future where AI agents become increasingly prevalent and indistinguishable, particularly in payment and social networks. The strategic importance of humanness verification was also reinforced in Blackrock’s annual shareholder letter, as the on-chain economy for tokenized assets continues to grow (link).

 

It is clear that while it is still early days when looking at World’s traction to date, this is a stellar management team led by Sam Altman, as Chairman of the Board, with a BHAG that has orders of magnitude upside if it succeeds. Looking ahead, we anticipate continued geographic expansion, strategic partnerships, and robust growth of the Mini App ecosystem throughout the remainder of the year. We are excited and feel privileged to be investors in this protocol.