Worldcoin Foundation Launches Developer Preview of World Chain, Its Upcoming Layer 2 Network

The Worldcoin Foundation has launched a developer preview of World Chain, its upcoming Layer 2 network. This preview enables a limited number of

Developer Preview of Worldcoin’s Layer 2 Network, World Chain, Now Available

The Worldcoin Foundation has announced a developer preview for its upcoming Layer 2 network, called World Chain. This preview will allow a limited number of developers to explore, build, and test the network ahead of its mainnet launch, which is expected later this summer.

World Chain is designed to be a permissionless, open-source network that will be independently governed by its community. It will be secured by Ethereum within the Superchain network of Layer 2 chains that are built using the OP Stack. This preview will enable developers to set up their deployments before the migration of over 10 million World App users from the existing OP Mainnet.

The decision to create World Chain comes as Worldcoin user transactions have grown to account for more than 50% of OP Mainnet’s activity since its launch in July 2023, sometimes reaching 80% during peak periods. This growth has resulted in scalability challenges, leading to the decision to migrate to a dedicated chain.

Partners such as Alchemy, Safe, and Elliptic will support World Chain by providing tooling and infrastructure for developers. The Worldcoin Foundation projects that World Chain will be able to process approximately double the amount of work compared to OP Mainnet before the fee market is impacted, with further optimizations planned.

When World Chain was first introduced in early April, the foundation stated that developers supporting the protocol “will continue to contribute directly to the Ethereum network (just like they did for EIP-4844) and collaborate with the developers working on the Optimism and Base networks” for shared infrastructure, scaling, security, and interoperability.

At its core, Worldcoin’s “proof of personhood” concept carries an idealistic vision for the future of the internet and digital identity. The main goal is to create a system that can reliably distinguish between human and artificial actors online, addressing increasing concerns about bot activity, fake accounts, and AI-generated content.

By using iris scans to verify unique human identities, Worldcoin aims to establish a global network of “verified” individuals. This could potentially enable more trustworthy online interactions, fair distribution of resources or universal basic income, and new forms of democratic participation in digital spaces.

The project envisions a world where every person has a unique, self-sovereign digital identity that preserves privacy while enabling secure access to various online services and platforms. In theory, this could help combat misinformation, reduce fraud, and create more equitable systems for distributing digital assets or voting rights. However, this idealism is balanced against significant privacy concerns and the practical challenges of actual implementation at scale.

Increasing the network capacity is expected to allow for faster onboarding of new users and provide quicker, cheaper, and more reliable transactions for existing users. This development could potentially accelerate the adoption of Worldcoin’s proof of personhood system and WLD, its associated token.

At the time of writing, WLD is trading at $1.85, showing a 4% decrease in the last 24 hours. Worldcoin has a market capitalization of $644.7 million and a fully diluted valuation of $25.1 billion.