By Keerthi Ramesh
World Network’s native cryptocurrency WLD climbed sharply Wednesday as markets reacted to reports that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is exploring a new biometric-based social network aimed at combating bot accounts online.
The token, formerly known as Worldcoin, soared roughly 27% in trading during the session following a Forbes report that described an early-stage project within OpenAI to build a “real humans only” social platform. The report said the envisioned network would leverage biometric verification, possibly including Apple’s Face ID or World’s iris-scanning Orb technology, to ensure that users are genuine people rather than automated accounts or bots.
Investors appeared encouraged by the potential for closer ties between one of the crypto sector’s most controversial projects and a powerhouse AI company. World’s WLD token had been trading lower earlier in the year amid broader crypto market weakness, but Wednesday’s speculation brought renewed attention to the asset and its underlying identity technology.
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According to people familiar with the matter, the social network effort is being developed by a small internal team and remains in the early stages, with no official timeline or public announcement from OpenAI. The biometric systems being considered would go beyond traditional email or phone-based verification by using unique biometric markers to establish “proof of personhood.”
World, co-founded by Altman and headquartered in San Francisco, began life as a blockchain project designed to provide decentralized identity verification and financial access. Its signature World ID program uses scanning hardware called Orbs to capture a person’s iris data, which is then used to generate a unique identifier. The project has drawn both interest and criticism from privacy advocates and regulators globally, who have raised concerns about the security of irrevocable biometric data.
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Proponents argue the biometric approach could help address one of the internet’s most persistent problems, the proliferation of bot accounts that mimic human behavior to spread spam or misinformation. But critics caution that tying unique biometric signatures to online identities could raise serious privacy and surveillance issues if data governance isn’t robust.
The Forbes report underscored that the proposed platform would compete with entrenched social networks such as X, Instagram and TikTok, all of which contend with bot-related challenges. The appeal of a network that could credibly ensure every account is a real person, however, sparked enough market enthusiasm to push World’s token higher.
OpenAI and World Network both declined to comment on the reported discussions. With regulators and civil liberties groups watching closely, any move into social networking tied to biometric verification is likely to be closely scrutinized, even as investors bet on the potential upside.