Sam Altman’s World Project Launches in US with Eye-Scanning Balls in Six Cities
Cheyenne Ligon, Margot Nijkerk | Edited by Nikhilesh De Updated May 2, 2025, 7:13 PM Published May 1, 2025, 4:20 AM
Sam Altman’s much-talked-about blockchain project World has launched in the US, planning to install 7,500 eye-scanning “balls” in cities across the country by the end of the year.
The company said the World balls — chrome devices resembling bowling balls that scan eyeballs to verify identity — will initially be available to Americans in six “core innovation hubs”: Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco. Those who take the plunge and peek inside the ball will be given access to the World app and an airdrop of World WLD tokens. By the end of the year, the project aims to have enough balls to reach 180 million Americans, more than half the population.
Altman and other executives at parent company World Tools for Humanity announced the U.S. expansion at a press conference in San Francisco on Wednesday evening, and also unveiled a host of new features and partnerships for the project.
The World app will now offer its users access to crypto-backed loans via the non-custodial lending protocol Morpho and prediction markets via Kalshi. Later this year, WLD holders will be able to use their tokens like cash via a new World-linked Visa debit card. The project will also integrate its identity verification technology into some online dating apps. Starting with Tinder users in Japan, Match Group will test the use of World ID to verify the age of its users.
Altman said the concept for World predates the creation of OpenAI, his generative artificial intelligence (AI) company.
“We needed a way to authenticate people in the [AI] era,” Altman said at a press conference. “We needed to identify what content was created by humans and what was created by AI. We wanted to find a way to ensure that humans remain unique and central in a world where there will be a lot of AI-generated content on the internet.”
Altman’s initial ideas for solving the human verification problem were “completely crazy,” he said. “The world and its eye-scanning balls are just a small part of it.
World is the latest crypto project to announce expansion into the U.S. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the regulatory environment has become much more favorable to crypto projects.
The company confirmed that it will build a factory in Richardson, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, to produce the balls needed for its upcoming expansion in the U.S. After the initial rollout, other major cities such as Seattle, Orlando, San Diego and Las Vegas will receive a second wave of balls.
“They’re really going to be everywhere,” said Alex Blania, co-founder of Tools for Humanity. “They’re going to be at gas stations, they’re going to be at convenience stores, and you’re going to be able to check them out in 10 minutes, no matter where you are.”
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