Worldcoin changes its name to save itself, WLD’s function is unclear, the new chain finally becomes a MEME show

On October 18, Worldcoin, which had been silent for a long time, caused a rare market ripple.

The two founders, Alex Blania and Sam Altman, announced in a live broadcast conference that Worldcoin will complete a major update. Worldcoin will be officially renamed World Network, the World Chain mainnet will be launched, and other components will also be updated, including ORB2.0, World ID 3.0, and World App 3.0.

The brand upgrade is prominent, but just three months ago, Worldcoin also caused a series of criticisms due to token WLD inflation and wash fraud. It can be said that this update can be called a self-help move. Even Sam Altman, the father of OpenAI, who has been absent from the project for a long time, finally stood on the stage again to promote it.

Although the big guys want to continue to sing the story, the market does not seem to buy it. After the launch of World Chain, WLD did not rise but fell by 10%, and World Chain inevitably became the new playground of MEME.

On October 18, the founding team of Worldcoin introduced the latest strategic layout of Worldcoin. Compared with the previous focus on WorldID, WLD and WorldAPP, this update introduced World Chain, slightly delegating the priority of APP, and no longer mentioned the UBI vision, returning to the essential identity authentication function of Worldcoin, mentioning that in the future, World Chain, World ID and WLD will be the three pillars to form a network composed of real and verified humans.

The most noteworthy update is undoubtedly World Chain. After nearly half a year of waiting, World Chain was officially launched. It is a Layer2 network built on OP Stack and will introduce World ID. Compared with other public chains, World Chain has obvious main features, with gas-free transactions being the first. The foundation said that all users who pass the Orb iris scan can be exempted from gas fees, and the fees will be borne by the foundation instead. Secondly, the priority block space design that can reduce the risk of MEV attacks has also become a highlight.

The long-criticized iris scanning device Orb has launched version 2.0, and the new Orbs is expected to be launched in the spring of 2025. By simplifying the design, the number of parts has been reduced by 30%, making the cost lower. At the same time, NVIDIA's Jetson chipset is used, and the running speed is 3 times that of the previous version. It is worth noting that the device will start the global expansion plan to re-propose the goal of 1 billion users, and cooperate with Rappi, the leading delivery service in Latin America, to realize the Orb verification service for door-to-door appointments, and comprehensively broaden the acquisition channels.

On the APP side, the change is more significant. Based on the original single wallet function, World App has launched Mini App, which allows third-party applications to run inside World App and deeply and anonymously integrate with the user's World ID, wallet and contacts, adding social, light-end consumption and casual game functions. This function is quite similar to the currently popular Telegram applet. Compared with the robots that are rampant on Telegram, World App, which sells real human identities, may have an advantage here.

All of the above functions can be integrated with World ID. In this World ID 3.0 version, perhaps to increase the speed of promotion, 3.0 launched the World ID credential, which can use hardware and physical NFC real identity such as passports for authentication. The authentication information will be stored on the end side to ensure privacy. Before this, World ID only supports iris verification, and non-verified users cannot receive WLD. In addition, version 3.0 also introduced World ID Deep Face, which is compatible with video and chat, and can fight against the threat of deep fakes.

Overall, this update is undoubtedly a repositioning and reshuffle of the strategic direction. It not only reconfirms that the main vision of the project is human real identity authentication and returns to the original intention of dealing with AI threats, but also considers the promotion and fission functions in the changes of major components. The addition of a public chain may also be considered to empower the token WLD. In this sense, the World business model has a trend of gradually moving towards maturity.

Although there are many positive updates and well-known founders rarely appear, the market response is not satisfactory.

Due to the existence of the press conference, the price of WLD fluctuated significantly, rising from US$2.08 on October 17 to US$2.53 on October 19, but after the mainnet was officially launched, the price of WLD fell by 10%. In contrast, Uniswap, which is also a Layer2 chain, ushered in a rapid increase of 15% within a day after the release of Unichain.

The reason for this problem is undoubtedly the lack of price empowerment of WLD. As early as September 30, when Worldcoin released a press conference copy preview titled "Building AI on human terms takes all of us", due to the presence of AI in the title, the market tended to believe that Worldcoin might build cooperation with OpenAI, and the emergence of World Chain could also provide an application scenario for WLD. According to the team's official blog post, as of October 17, 2024, 15 million World ID holders and World App users have migrated or are migrating to World Chain. It can be seen that WLD is highly expected in terms of both external benefits and internal directions.

However, throughout the press conference, the actual performance of WLD was not specifically mentioned. It was only briefly mentioned that World Chain verified users would receive WLD token airdrops. The priority of WLD was not emphasized in the introduction of the chain. Other functions, such as the fact that APP users with physical passports can apply for WLD tokens before they have fully verified the World ID through Orb, were also lightly revealed. This is far from the income from the direct holding of token distribution agreements expected by the current crypto market, and even compared with the indirect incentives of general public chains, it is obviously insufficient.

Against this background, the market generally holds a relatively wait-and-see attitude towards WLD, and rapid shipment after the favorable situation ends has become a basic operation, especially market making. According to Coinwire's on-chain analysis, multiple market makers have short-term profit-taking liquidation behavior. GSR MARKET deposited $3 million of WLD into Binance and quickly sold it during the price increase. Binance deposited $16 million of WLD into the cold storage wallet on the day of the live broadcast, and Amber also withdrew more than $5 million of WLD from Binance and divided it into two sub-wallets to avoid tracking. In response to this issue, the market has once again raised the voice of price manipulation.

In fact, this is not the first time that WLD has been caught in a whirlpool of public opinion due to its price. In July of this year, due to problems such as large-scale unlocking and preparation for selling pressure, DeFi Squared published a long article on X directly pointing out that the WLD team manipulated and misled prices by changing the issuance volume, market maker contracts, and issuing announcements before unlocking, saying that every time a good news was announced, a member of the team or venture capital was using insider information to preempt transactions. The on-chain detective ZachXBT also agreed with his point of view.

With a long criminal record, it is naturally difficult for prices to rise. The newly constructed chain, World Chain, which has 15 million users, has inevitably become a unique token playground in the currency circle. ORB, which has the same name as the iconic iris scanning device, is the first token on the chain and also has the nature of an official token. Users can apply for 1,000 ORBs through the World app after scanning and authentication, but the currency is not yet open for trading. In addition to official tokens, MEME is also indispensable. On the day World Chain went online, cats, dogs, rabbits, and frogs could not wait to take turns on the stage, and the zoo market reappeared. Among them, the frog MEME FROGE rose as much as 16 times in 24 hours on the day of the press conference, becoming the top gainer of the day. The outbreak of MEME also promoted the increase in trading volume. According to disclosed data, on the day of the press conference, the 24-hour trading volume of World Chain exceeded US$70 million.

Overall, as a new chain that has not yet achieved application completeness, the direction of MEME is inevitable, which is not necessarily a bad thing. MEME's feedback to the chain has been verified many times, and Solana is already a typical case of this point. But in the long run, World Chain is obviously not limited to MEME. But compared with other Layer2, World Chain does not have any key technological breakthroughs, and there is no absolute advantage on the user side, and it is weak in the subsequent introduction of developers.

Of course, from the perspective of the entire application construction, the chain itself also exists as an extension of the World ecology, and currently emphasizes integration with World ID. The reason for its initial construction is also based on the strategic forward-looking consideration of the high proportion of Worldcoin user transaction volume in OP Mainnet of 44%. But it is undeniable that, for now, the attractiveness of the new chain is highly dependent on the development of the World ecology, and external funds are only showing a wait-and-see attitude at this stage.

Back to the World ecosystem, according to official data, as of now, World ID users have covered up to 160 countries/regions, the number of ID verifications has exceeded 7.01 million, the number of active Orb devices has reached 848, and the daily wallet transaction volume has exceeded 290,000. As the old saying goes, although it is far from the number of users expected by the founder, as an identity recognition track project, the data is still satisfactory.

But in terms of growth, the data is not so impressive. Taking the number of ID verifications as an example, the number of verifications increased by less than one million in 3 months, with a monthly increase of about 333,300. It will take at least 248 years to reach the 1 billion goal mentioned again at this conference, not to mention the current sharp increase in ORB compliance risks. ORB has been banned in Spain and Portugal, and Argentina and the UK are also reviewing it.

Combined with the above, this major update has a strong sense of self-rescue. Looking back at the launch in July 2023, the development of Worldcoin is only a flash in the pan, and hundreds of millions of financing seem to be the highlight moment. Not only the token performance is poor, but also compliance issues continue, and growth is stagnant. Against this background, the founding team must find a new growth path. Therefore, it can be seen that this update highlights the growth side, no longer insisting on the original Orb verification, physical documents can also be used as authentication, and the APP port adds more social functions to increase stickiness. Orb has completed the price reduction and efficiency improvement from the cost side, and the on-demand distribution model is particularly prominent in attracting new users, and expanding the global territory has become a direct path.

However, if this move is to save the project from the water and fire, from the perspective of market reaction, it is still difficult. Even now, the entire World ecosystem still has no core business model. Whether it is the foundation, market makers or external investors, they all rely on WLD for monetization, but on the update side, they do not empower WLD as always. If this core problem is not solved, the direction of the token road can be imagined.

At present, WLD is still a vassal of the encrypted AI section and a vassal of Sam Altman's marketing story, floating up and down with the hot spots. It is quite interesting that Worldcoin is moving towards World and Coin is removed. Although the official reason is that the old name "Worldcoin" is no longer suitable for its mission to accelerate the role of humans in the future of artificial intelligence, does this also form a very accidental resonance with the fate of WLD? This question may be answered soon.