World’s New Revenue Model Raises Questions About WLD

When I saw the headline "The Revenue Potential from World ID" on the World blog, my first thought was that they were about to start charging users for obtaining a World ID.

That would have been a bold move. Early adopters were actually rewarded for getting a World ID, so imagine the kind of FOMO they could have triggered by flipping the model and introducing a fee instead. And if that fee were payable in the same WLD tokens that had previously been distributed as rewards, it could have sparked renewed demand for the token.

But that’s not the direction they’ve chosen. Instead, World plans to monetize World ID by turning proof of personhood into a paid service - charging applications that want to verify that each of their users is a unique human.

To be fair, that’s still cheaper than running full KYC just to filter out bot-driven bonus hunters. So yes, World will likely find some clients.

What’s more questionable is their decision to allow these fees to be paid in currencies other than WLD. That raises an obvious concern: does WLD even have a meaningful role in this system going forward? Honestly, it’s hard to see one.

As a reminder, you can exchange WLD for any other crypto asset right now at the best rates on rabbit.io.