Sam Altman’s World Project Upgrades App With Encrypted Chat, In-Chat Crypto Pay Options

World, Sam Altman’s biometric identity-verification project, has updated the latest version of its app to include encrypted chat service with crypto payment integration.

The upgrade has enabled Venmo-like send, deposit and withdraw cryptocurrency within the World Wallet and virtual accounts.

The new App supports USDC, EURC and wrapped Bitcoin, Ethereum, and additionally supports 100+ cryptocurrency tokens, the Thursday announcement read.

World ‘Super App’: End-to-End Encryption, Crypto Integration

World formally launched its app in 2023 and said at the time that the mission is to provide tools to verify human identity in an era of AI manipulation.

The app upgrade was revealed on Thursday at World’s headquarters in San Francisco, where Altman and World co-founder and CEO Alex Blania briefly spoke about the innovations. Developers termed the new upgrade a “super app” before the product team explained its features.

“It’s really hard to identify unique people while preserving privacy,” said Altman, a Mezha report noted.

To ensure conversation privacy, the chat messages display blue bubbles for “verified humans” and gray bubbles for those who haven’t verified. Further, profile photos are checked against the Orb image stored on the user’s device.

World App Updates With Virtual Bank Accounts and Expanded Crypto Features

In May, World launched its iris-scanning project to US customers. The process involves users scanning their face and iris in about 30 seconds, creating a unique “IrisCode” to verify their identity.

Besides, the World already functions as a digital wallet; however, the new version introduces virtual bank accounts.

“Users can receive their salary directly in the World App, make deposits from bank accounts, after which funds can be converted into cryptocurrency,” the report added.

Besides swap and trade across more than 100 supported assets, World Chain native tokens and a RWA assets like tokenized gold are also available, the company said in the statement.

The new version of the app underscores the firm’s intention to expand partnerships and build a more integrated ecosystem focused on the ease of crypto usage.