Billion-dollar startup Worldcoin is launching its first native wallet World App to support its ecosystem.
In a press release shared with Unchained, Worldcoin said it would be making the World App available to more than 80 countries across the world.
The wallet makes use of account abstraction through Gnosis’ SAFE contracts and the beta version runs on the Polygon network. However, the protocol’s developers have been actively contributing to EIP-4844, also known as “Proto-Danksharding”, and expect the full version of the wallet to run on the Ethereum rollup.
World App will support peer-to-peer payments using ENS usernames which allow for more user friendly ERC-20 transfers and facilitate token trading through decentralized exchange Uniswap.
“World App is a different kind of wallet. It doesn’t support everything crypto has to offer, and it doesn’t expose every possible token or configuration. Instead, it intentionally focuses on a few important tasks to keep things simple and familiar so anyone can use it,” said a Worldcoin spokesperson.
These functions include saving and sending digital assets, gas-free transactions and “proving personhood” with World ID – Worldcoin’s privacy-focused decentralized identity protocol.
The idea behind Worldcoin was conceived by Y-combinator’s former president Sam Altman, who now serves as CEO of OpenAI. In 2021, the firm raised around $25 million from investors, including a16z and Coinbase Ventures.
At the heart of its mission, is the verification of individuals’ identities through a spherical device called the “Orb” that scans people’s irises.
“As we explored many different ways to solve Sybil resistance and prove unique personhood, our research showed that iris scanning offers the most accurate biometrics with an acceptable user experience that has been successfully tested at scale,” said Worldcoin in a blog post.
