Worldcoin

The project that launched WLD in July 2023 took the broader name World in October 2024. The rebrand did not turn four products into one legal object. World ID is a proof-of-human credential. World App is a client operated by TFH. World Chain is an Ethereum layer 2 whose infrastructure is owned and operated through Foundation-controlled World Chain LLC. WLD remains an ERC-20 token. The distinction matters because a token balance proves neither identity nor a claim against the organizations behind the network.

The current Orb flow is more precise than the slogan 'scan and delete.' The device photographs irises and a face, derives a code for uniqueness, divides it into randomized MPC fragments, sends the images and fragments to the phone, and deletes them from the Orb. The phone then sends fragments to the AMPC service to check whether the person has enrolled before. World ID presentation uses zero-knowledge proofs so a relying app can receive a valid-human result without receiving the underlying images.

Personal Custody is the default route described by World, but it is not the only route available in the app. A separate opt-in can send Orb and Face Auth photos and metadata to TFH servers to diagnose failures and train authentication models; users can revoke that consent. Privacy analysis therefore needs two questions, not one: what leaves the Orb by default, and what the user later authorizes TFH to retain.

The institutional map resists the word decentralized. TFH built the Orb, the first protocol version and World App, and still operates that app. World Foundation is a memberless Cayman foundation with a four-director Board. Its documents let a DAO issue recommendations that directors must pursue with best efforts, but fiduciary duties and legal requirements remain. World Assets is the Foundation's wholly controlled BVI company and distributor of the community token pool. The whitepaper describes one-person-one-vote and token-plus-identity governance as possibilities; it also says the Foundation currently governs the project.

The initial supply is 10 billion WLD: 75% World Community, 13.6% TFH investors, 11.1% team and service providers, and 0.3% TFH reserve as of April 28, 2025. The word community does not mean those 7.5 billion tokens all entered user wallets. World Foundation governs their allocation and the unlock contracts set an upper boundary; actual circulation depends on claims, operations and treasury decisions.

The token contract is not upgradable. No address can mint before July 24, 2038 at 04:00 UTC; thereafter governance may activate up to 1.5% annual inflation from a default rate of zero. Until then, dilution comes from existing allocations. On April 10, 2026, World reported 4.9 billion WLD unlocked and 3.3 billion circulating. The same announcement scheduled a reduction in daily unlocks from about 5.1 million to 2.9 million WLD on July 24, 2026 under the existing contracts, without a cliff. This is evidence of the announced schedule, not a later execution report. These rules create neither equity nor a guaranteed distribution right.

Spain's AEPD imposed a maximum three-month emergency halt in March 2024 after complaints involving information, minors and withdrawal of consent. Hong Kong's PCPD found in May that the operation had collected face and iris images unnecessarily and unfairly, retained data too long, lacked Chinese notices and denied effective access or correction; it ordered scanning and collection to cease. In December, Bavaria's lead EU authority required a GDPR-compliant deletion procedure, explicit consent for some processing and deletion of certain unlawfully collected records. It also recorded that the company intended to appeal.

Kenya supplied the strongest judicial endpoint in the reviewed record. On May 5, 2025, the High Court quashed collection, processing or transfer performed without an adequate impact assessment or using consent induced by cryptocurrency and ordered the covered biometric data destroyed within seven days under regulator supervision. These decisions concern specific dates, entities and local law. They should not be inflated into a timeless worldwide ban, but they make consent design and deletion rights part of the product's history.

World Chain went live with the October 2024 rebrand and became the main venue for World App and user-token activity. WLD is canonical on Ethereum and bridged to World Chain; TFH currently subsidizes many World App gas costs, a product policy that can change. The migration made the network easier to use, yet it did not give WLD holders ownership of TFH, the Foundation or World Chain infrastructure. The durable distinction is between access the software currently offers and rights the token legally carries.