👁️ Sam Altman’s Eye on the Chain: Worldcoin Expands to the U.S.

Figure 1: Creation by restofworld.org

Worldcoin just entered the chat and the Orb is watching. Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning crypto project has officially launched across six U.S. cities, and whether you see it as dystopia or digital sovereignty, it’s here to stay.

Let’s break down what’s happening, what it means, and whether it’s cool or creepy (spoiler: probably both).

🛸 What Is Worldcoin Anyway?

Worldcoin = three parts:

The Orb – a shiny sci-fi bowling ball that scans your iris
World ID – your unique, biometric-proof-of-human identity
$WLD – the native token you get for being brave enough to look into the Orb

The core pitch? In a world increasingly flooded by bots, AIs, and deepfakes, “proof of personhood” will become essential. Worldcoin wants to give you a global, portable identity — and reward you in tokens for verifying it.

🇺🇸 Why the U.S. Launch Matters

After months of rolling out in places like Kenya, Argentina, and Portugal, Worldcoin is now live in:

Atlanta
Austin
Los Angeles
Miami
Nashville
San Francisco

New users get 16 $WLD on signup. Early adopters get up to 150 WLD as a “pioneer grant.” And all of this comes with a healthy dose of controversy (we’ll get to that).

💳 Introducing

The Worldcoin Visa Debit Card

This isn’t just eyeball scans anymore. Worldcoin partnered with Visa to launch a Worldcoin debit card, allowing users to spend their $WLD in the real world, instantly converting it to fiat.

You can manage it all in the World App, which also includes:

Messaging
Payments
Wallets
Ecosystem integrations (Stripe, Match Group, Razer, etc.)

Yes, this thing is becoming a full-stack financial + identity layer.

😬 Privacy? Let’s Talk About It.

This is where the vibes get… Orwellian.
Worldcoin promises that it

doesn’t store your eye photos. Instead, it creates a hashed "iris code" that’s encrypted and supposedly can't be reverse-engineered.

Still, regulators aren’t convinced. The project has already been:

Altman’s team says privacy is "by design." Critics say: prove it.

📊 Where We Go from Here

Love it or hate it, Worldcoin now has over 12 million verified users globally.
It’s framing itself as the identity layer for Web3, AI, and beyond.

Whether it succeeds depends on two things: