Worldcoin partners with Alchemy ahead of World Chain launch

Human-verification project Worldcoin WLD -3.72% announced it has partnered with the web3 infrastructure platform Alchemy ahead of launching the World Chain blockchain in the coming weeks or months.

"By partnering with Alchemy, World Chain developers ... will have immediate access to a complete and comprehensive web3 developer platform including both core and data APIs, indexing solutions and a suite of other tools needed by developers to power their apps," according to a statement.

Tools for Humanity's Head of Protocol Steven Smith told The Block that "the Alchemy developer toolset is the most comprehensive we’re aware of in web3."

The Worldcoin project is primarily being developed and promoted by Tools for Humanity, which was founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Alex Blania, who also serves as the company's CEO.

In April, the Worldcoin Foundation announced it would launch a new Layer 2 blockchain called World Chain. The new blockchain is being designed to make the Worldcoin project function more efficiently as it assigns World IDs to people willing to prove they are human by having their eyeballs scanned. The project has signed up nearly 6 million people, according to its website .

World Chain will “work alongside Optimism, Coinbase and the wider Ethereum ecosystem as part of the Superchain,” according to Wednesday's statement. “Pending migration from OP Mainnet, where Worldcoin regularly takes up more than 50% of the available blockspace, World Chain will also be the new home for World ID and World App.”

The new blockchain is slated to be launched sometime this summer, according to Worldcoin.

Alchemy’s Noam Hurwitz said his company joining forces with Worldcoin serves the larger goal of bringing more “mainstream” internet users onchain. “The fundamental way to scale blockchain applications, get more block space, is to use rollups which is a key piece of infrastructure we are partnering on,” he added.

World Chain is meant to be “optimized for real humans instead of bots” with World ID holders gaining priority blockspace and “free gas allowance for casual transactions," according to the Worldcoin Foundation.