Ready to stare into a shiny metal ball and be rewarded in crypto? Sam Altman thinks you are. His eyebrow-raising blockchain project, World, is officially rolling out across the US, and it’s bringing 7,500 eye-scanning orbs to the party.
These chrome, bowling ball-shaped gadgets (yes, they really do look like alien tech) will be deployed in six major US cities: Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco. By the end of the year, the goal is to have enough orbs blinking across the country to reach 180 million Americans—yep, more than half the population.
So what happens when you let one of these sci-fi spheres scan your eyeballs? You get access to the World app and a nice little WLD token airdrop for your trouble. Not bad for a quick retinal check.
World’s parent company, Tools for Humanity, announced the expansion during a flashy press conference in San Francisco. But the orbs are just the start.
The World app is getting a glow-up, now offering crypto-backed loans via Morpho and prediction markets through Kalshi. Want to use your WLD like real money? A World-linked Visa debit card is on the way later this year.
And in case that wasn’t weirdly futuristic enough, World ID will be integrated into dating apps. Match Group is starting with Tinder users in Japan, because nothing says romance like verifying your age with a biometric scan.
Altman, who is also the mind behind OpenAI, says World actually came before ChatGPT and friends. His goal? To keep humans relevant in a future swarming with AI-generated content.
“We needed a way to know what was made by humans and what was AI,” he said. “We wanted humans to stay special.”
Altman admits his first ideas were "very crazy." World and its 7,500 orbs? Only slightly crazy—just crazy enough to maybe work.
And in case you’re wondering why all this is happening now, it might have something to do with the friendlier crypto climate in the US since President Donald Trump took office this January. Love him or hate him, the crypto crowd is certainly feeling the warm regulatory breeze.
So if you spot a shiny orb in your city sometime soon, don’t panic. It just wants to scan your eyeballs and give you some tokens. Totally normal stuff.
But hey, those shiny orbs don’t just materialize out of thin air. Someone’s gotta make them, right? That’s why the company’s setting up shop in Richardson, Texas—a Dallas suburb soon to become the orb capital of America. Yep, World’s building a whole factory just to churn out these futuristic eye-ball bowling balls for its grand U.S. expansion.
Once the first batch lands in the chosen six cities, the second wave of orbs is headed to even more big-name spots: Seattle, Orlando, San Diego, and, naturally, Vegas—because where better to stare into a glowing orb than right after losing your rent money at blackjack?
“They’ll really be everywhere,” promised Alex Blania, co-founder of Tools for Humanity. “Gas stations, corner stores—you name it. You’ll be able to verify your identity in 10 minutes flat, no matter where you are.”
So yeah, you might just be grabbing a Red Bull at 7-Eleven when boom—orb to the face, scan your soul, collect some crypto. Welcome to the future, where your eyes are the keys to the blockchain kingdom.
HODL Team
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