Just a few weeks ago, World company founder Alex Blania revealed his latest strategic card to a room full of crypto bigwigs. While attracting attention by riding the policy tailwind to break into the US market was notable, the real masterstroke was their lightning breakthrough into mainstream consumer scenarios. This marks cryptocurrency shedding its "geek club" label and truly charging into the daily commercial battlefield.
World's move was ruthless: convincing Americans to swap a "real person verification badge" via iris scanning is difficult, even with privacy protection promises (and the timing might be too early). But they had already silently accomplished something big: over the past three years, they secretly paved the way with three layers of insurance for this crazy plan.
First create real product value, then add some Token sweetness
World initially followed an old path: attracting new users through Token incentives. However, this approach, praised as "Bitcoin's successful normalization" and later copied by countless projects, actually reversed cause and effect. World encountered pitfalls in early testing - overly aggressive incentives attracted users, but privacy circles and some developers began to criticize: "This isn't growth, this is just using revenue as a fig leaf."
But don't forget, Bitcoin's success stems from providing an unprecedented asset logic from the start: decentralized, fixed total supply, not controlled by central banks. Indeed, mining rewards and wealth explosion myths attracted early speculators, and later institutions and nations. But the true builders who stayed were not attracted by "wealth expectation", but by its radical possibility as a new asset and payment system. Most projects that copied this approach are now queuing in the crypto world's "graveyard".
The crypto world can't escape basic economic laws. Like any startup project, first create a real, usable product, then use Token to solve cold start or ecosystem incentive problems. Otherwise, no matter how complex the economic model, it's just empty talk. Blania this time brought out three real pain points as evidence: social, gaming, and credit domains.
Now with Bots running rampant, human-machine distinction is difficult. So he put World's "real person verification" system on the table, explaining clearly: why it's worth scanning an iris to get a "I am human" ticket.
In an era of AI rapidly invading everything, we will eventually face authentication needs of "are you human", World is just a step ahead.
Learn to Deal with "Infrastructure Inversion"
In that early crypto boom, we all rushed in. When I was designing the Bitcoin experiment at MIT, I truly believed we could completely overturn payment and financial systems within two or three years. Ten years have passed, and we've barely begun. To truly push crypto products outside the circle, we must align with experiences traditional users and merchants are already accustomed to. This means building a bridge between old systems and new technologies. And this bridge often requires compromises that would seem heretical to "crypto fundamentalists".
But this stage is unavoidable. You must traverse that awkward "new and old co-existing" period - which Andreas Antonopoulos calls infrastructure inversion. Imagine dial-up internet occupying phone lines, the first car bumping along a gravel road - it sounds uncomfortable.
This "technology transitional period" makes new systems initially difficult to widely deploy, only able to innovate in certain niche scenarios, far from subverting the entire system. AI faces similar challenges. World initially tried to skip this stage, using tokens as the protagonist to directly charge forward. But the new version completely flips this: embracing "infrastructure inversion", returning to product utility, walking more steadily and deeply.
Don't fantasize about creating a globally universal wallet without connecting to old systems. Deposits and withdrawals must be as smooth as PayPal's online payment was back then, otherwise how can it become mainstream? This is why the new World App immediately connected with Stripe and Visa cards. Trust, familiarity, and utility, all in place. Because it's willing to be "backward compatible", traditional finance gets a chance to observe and test, rather than being directly eliminated.
This logic is quietly pushing crypto towards cross-border payments behind the scenes. In the future, technology might enter the mainstream, but before that, it must "borrow the old track", streamline processes, and minimize friction. Remember, many crypto mechanisms (including economic models) only have magic when scaled. But to achieve scale, people must first get on board. Without even an entry ramp, the most perfect model will just spin idly.
Whether Crypto Can Succeed Depends on Landing
Like all new technologies, crypto is not destined to win. Don't believe the myths of those self-congratulatory fans. To be more specific, "decentralization" - crypto's soul and its most critical market disruption contribution - was never a sure thing.
Stablecoins are a good example. To integrate with traditional financial systems, the crypto world created this tool, which is indeed useful. But problems subsequently arose: the ghosts of centralized management and closed networks were invited back.
I tend to believe open architectures will ultimately prevail, but don't forget, those "vested interests" have no reason to let you pass easily. Blania and his team made a big bet: betting users will care about decentralized data control, and betting enterprises will build better user experiences on this system. Once decentralized identity challenges the existing landscape, how difficult will it be - centralized players naturally start with UX and functional advantages.
So if World wants to overtake through a curved path, the first step is to convince users to hand over their biometric data. The US market is already running, and we'll soon see if they can find a balance between "privacy vs convenience".
Of course, a gentler "onboarding method" might be smarter: for example, first launching a familiar "authentication badge" that can unlock additional features in your commonly used App. Don't rush to make people stare at the sphere and scan their iris right away. The problem is that this kind of identity authentication is not very reliable and can be easily exploited, bypassed, or manipulated.
Blania's judgment might be correct. In this endless cat-and-mouse game with AI, only military-grade biometric identification is a truly "unbreakable" proof of humanity. But this doesn't mean he can't be gentler and avoid immediately pushing users in front of the sphere on the first day.
Those who airdrop will naturally line up, but this sweet and exciting wave will at most last a few days, and once the subsidy stops, the enthusiasm will dissipate. Truly sustainable growth only exists in daily value realization, which is their real opportunity. If World App can break through with a payment experience and a globally smooth deposit and withdrawal channel, it might truly create a breakthrough point.
Conclusion
Now, they have bet on the entire rhythm. Next, we will only be looking at one thing: can the crypto world truly break into the mainstream market?
Regardless of whether this World experiment ultimately succeeds, what I hope to see is more crypto projects willing to move the spotlight away from "token economics" and "price fluctuations" and turn towards actually creating daily usable products. Because this shift, while not sexy or exciting, is the bridge that the entire industry must cross to enter the mainstream market.
