Sam Altman announces rebranding and launch of "World Chain" Layer-2

Sam Altman's controversial crypto-identity project, Worldcoin, is getting a new name and will henceforth be called simply "World."

During a keynote presentation on Thursday night, it was announced that Worldcoin (WLD), the ChatGPT founder's crypto project, will be renamed "World." In addition announced the CEO of OpenAI announced the launch of "World Chain," an Ethereum Layer-2 solution, which will be accessible to the 15 million users already pre-authenticated through World ID. The main goal of this blockchain is to help people worldwide and address the problems created by the rapid development of AI.

The Layer-2 solution is specifically designed to attract human, authenticated users rather than bots so that they can reap the social and economic benefits of blockchain technology. For verification, users scan their iris using so-called "Orbs." Some see this form of identification, called "Proof of Personhood," as a dystopian nightmare, which also raises privacy concerns. As a result, Worldcoin has had to cease operations in several countries.

Altman also announced that the Orbs will get an upgrade. The new Orb will be powered by Nvidia hardware and is reportedly "five times" more powerful than its predecessor. It is also more efficient and compact. To improve privacy, an update to World ID will better protect users' data. According to developer Alex Blania, this update will provide a "anonymous human layer for the Internet." With techniques such as "Multi-Party Computation" user data are better secured.

In exchange for identification through the Orb, users receive WLD tokens. However, the recent rebranding has had little impact on the value of the token, which remains stable around $2.19.