📊 A capital-raising event that exceeded expectations has just occurred in crypto. While many large projects are still struggling to find growth momentum, World – a start-up less than a year old – has successfully raised a Seed round of $13.5 million from funds like a16z, Hashed, and Variant. This figure is shocking not only in scale but also signals a new emerging narrative: decentralized identity combined with on-chain social graph. So, where is the smart money heading?
🚀 Overview: Funding and attention wave focused on 'identity layer' projects
In just the past 3 months, socialFi and prominent "identity" platforms like Lens, Friend.tech, and CyberConnect have attracted millions of registrations, hundreds of thousands of active wallets, and a surge in TVL. Notably, World's on-chain data shows World App wallet registrations have reached 5.7 million in just 10 months – growing significantly faster than both Uniswap and MetaMask in their early stages.
- $13.5 million raised in Seed round, valued at ~$100 million in just 1 year.
- 5.7 million verified users through "orb", distributed across Asia and Latin America.
- Stable daily active users of 100-200 thousand, far exceeding typical dapps.
The on-chain micro-payment trading volume through World App is currently 50,000–70,000 transactions/day – a figure that many DeFi protocols can only dream of.
🧬 World's Portrait: ID Wallet, Incentive Play, and Viral MEV Attention
📌 Physical Identity Verification Mechanism Combined with Social Layer
More than just a token storage wallet, World pioneers a biometric ID verification model (via "orb" device) and on-chain identity mapping. Each user after verification receives a unique, non-falsifiable account – solving the "sybil attack" problem that has plagued airdrop hunters and previous socialFi platforms.
"World's user growth is not just fomo incentive, but an effort to directly address the fundamental issue of the new internet: who is truly who on blockchain?"
World serves both as a crypto wallet and a connection gateway for various socialFi applications – from earning apps to voting and gaming. The user incentive is the opportunity to receive retroactive airdrop, tied to activity metrics and real identity verification – a model likened to a "hybrid" between Proof of Humanity and previous ens/Unstoppable Domains.
💸 Money Flow – Is the SocialFi Market Entering a New Meta?
A notable point: World emerged and developed not through "open" airdrop rules like Friend.tech, but stimulated attention through identity narrative and mysterious tokenomics. Smart money appeared early from major funds, guiding crowd money into the narrative: "Want to receive benefits from new social applications? You must be 'real', verify via orb, and use World."
- Traditional DeFi meta cooling down due to decreased yield, old farming platforms losing attractiveness.
- Capital shifting to "human on-chain" narrative, experimenting with sybil-resistance models (World, Proof of Humanity, Masa,...).
- Social gaming and voting competition apps forced to integrate "real owner ID", massive incentives for early users (mining, retroactive rewards, exclusive credentials…)
The market sentiment is clear: users compete intensely to meet verified standards, while chasing the "attention is asset" trend as World becomes a hot spot attracting hidden airdrop campaigns from many new socialFi projects.
⚠️ Counterarguments: Identity Game Limitations, Money Flow Sustainability?
Despite World's breakthrough, big questions remain:
- Will this model become a place for ID spam, selling, or "orb account farming"?
- Is the current attention just airdrop fomo or a genuine long-term use case?
- Does the physical identity verification wave infringe on privacy, creating data monopoly?
History shows: Models dependent on incentives (StepN, Helium, Friend.tech) often fall into a Ponzi attention cycle, with token prices rising through whitelist/airdrop, then collapsing when users "eat and run". World has a network effect advantage, but without tight integration with Layer 2 applications (games, social voting, crediFi…), money flow will be difficult to sustain long-term.
📈 Long-term Perspective: Social Identity Rises, Paving Way for DeSoc Layer?
This is more than a foundational change; it's a meta shift. The real identity verification model, combined with blockchain social layer, transforms identity into a new on-chain asset. If successful in bridging real humans with gameFi, DeFi, and web3 voting platforms, World (and its competitors) could become an onboarding layer for hundreds of millions of non-crypto users, simultaneously "tokenizing" attention through personal verification.
Potential use cases include:
- Mass user onboarding: Through ID verification, NFT, gaming, and voting dapps reduce 99% spam/fake, truly opening web3 adoption.
- Digital common: Allowing DeSoc platforms to build a "citizenship" model, airdrops, and genuine voice on blockchain with near-impossible Sybil attacks.
- Bridge with web2: Fintech/media corporations can integrate World wallet as an additional verification layer – opportunities lie in markets outside crypto.
🔑 Conclusion
World is not a new technology, but has activated an entirely new attention flow: commitment to verifying "real people", building a robust socialFi platform for games, DeFi, airdrops, and new social applications. Essentially, attention is an asset. The identity game, despite facing privacy, spam, and centralization risks, has laid the first brick for the "on-chain identity" wave – a meta that major projects and investment funds have chosen as their next bet. This wave doesn't stop at World but opens up deeper research into how we define "who is who" in an increasingly complex blockchain world fiercely competing for attention.
