Worldcoin history: the Orb and the token
Sam Altman’s second project
Sam Altman, Alex Blania and Max Novendstern founded Worldcoin in 2019 through the company Tools for Humanity. The idea: a device called the Orb photographs your face and irises, confirms you are a unique person and gives you a World ID. Verified users receive WLD.
July 2023: launch and the first bans
WLD started trading on 24 July 2023, though not in the United States. Within weeks Kenya suspended enrolment, and France, the UK and Bavaria opened investigations. In March 2024 the Spanish data protection agency ordered the project to stop collecting biometric data.
The peak on AI hype
WLD reached its all-time high of 11.74 dollars on 9 March 2024, according to CoinGecko, while AI tokens were in demand and Altman led both OpenAI and Worldcoin. In October 2024 the project dropped “coin” from its name, became World and showed a new Orb with fewer parts.
Into the United States
World started operating in the United States on 1 May 2025, in six cities including San Francisco and Atlanta. By September 2025 it counted about 33 million World App users, 15 million of them verified. The token kept falling and on 18 May 2026 hit an all-time low of 0.23 dollars.