Sam Altman's World project passes 10 million human verifications

World, the blockchain-based human verification project previously known as Worldcoin, announced on Friday that it has signed up more than 10 million people worldwide. 

The project, launched in 2023 and backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, uses small electronic orbs to scan people's eyeballs and verify that they are human. People who submit to the scans and sign up receive WLD tokens. World's ethos revolves around the idea that as society becomes increasingly dependent on digital agents powered by artificial intelligence a reliable system of discerning AI agents from human actors will be paramount.

"As AI continues to advance, the ability to prove humanness online is only becoming more important," World said in a recent blog post.

Besides verifying more than 10 million humans, over 20 million users have also downloaded the World App, according to the same post .

One of World's biggest accomplishments last year included launching in Brazil , a nation of more than 215 million. Brazil also has a generally favorable attitude towards cryptocurrencies.

World has been, at times, polarizing among data privacy advocates and corresponding regulatory bodies, especially in Europe.

Last month, a German regulator, the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision, ordered the project to delete biometric data it had collected from scanning people’s eyeballs.  World quickly countered, saying it had already changed its processes, and the results of the regulator’s investigation “largely” pertained “to outdated operations and technologies that have been replaced in 2024.” 

Throughout much of 2024, World made efforts to get on the right side of regulators as it aims to continue adding additional countries. World is currently in over 160 countries, it has said .

Tools for Humanity, led by CEO and co-founder Alex Blania, is the chief developer behind the World project.