Worldcoin's Proof of Personhood vs Circles UBI

Hardware-based biometric verification via the Orb provides a strong, one-person-one-identity guarantee. This is critical for protocols like Optimism's Citizen House or Aave's governance needing global, sybil-resistant voting. With 5M+ verified World IDs, it offers a ready-made user base for dApps.

Trust-based social graph where identity and credit emerge from local connections, not a central authority. Ideal for building hyper-local DAOs, community currencies, or cooperative platforms where existing social ties provide the foundational trust layer, as seen in early pilots in Berlin.

Plug-and-play SDKs (Sign in with Worldcoin) and on-chain verifiable credentials allow integration in days. Supported on Optimism, Base, and Polygon. This matters for teams needing to quickly add proof-of-personhood to an existing dApp without building a social graph from scratch.

Fully decentralized and permissionless protocol running on Gnosis Chain. No central entity can revoke identities or halt the system. This matters for communities seeking economic tools independent of corporate or state control, aligning with RadicalxChange principles.

Global, unique human verification via Orb biometrics. Provides a cryptographically secure, one-person-one-identity guarantee. This matters for protocols needing airdrop distribution, governance voting, or resource allocation where preventing bot farms is critical. The World ID SDK is integrated by apps like Telegram for user verification.

High-throughput verification on the Optimism Superchain, processing millions of proofs. Backed by significant capital and a >5 million verified user base. This matters for applications requiring mass-scale onboarding and a ready-made user pool, such as global social apps or universal basic income experiments.

Relies on trusted hardware (Orbs) and a centralized foundation for initial issuance. Biometric data collection raises significant privacy concerns, despite zero-knowledge proofs. This is a major trade-off for protocols prioritizing decentralized issuance or minimal personal data collection. Regulatory scrutiny is high.

Identity emerges from a web of trust within personal social networks. No central authority issues IDs; users vouch for each other. This matters for building localized economies, community currencies, or cooperative platforms where trust is organic and federated, not globally uniform.

Integrates identity with a basic income currency (CRC). Each unique identity generates a personal currency, fostering peer-to-peer economic networks. This matters for protocols building alternative economic systems, local trade networks, or tools for community resource sharing beyond simple verification.

Bootstrapping trust graphs is slow and can suffer from low liquidity between disparate circles. Lacks the global interoperability and instant verification of a singular system. This is a trade-off for protocols needing immediate, global sybil resistance or that operate outside tight-knit community contexts.

Biometric Uniqueness: Uses custom Orb hardware to verify human uniqueness via iris codes. This provides a high-assurance, globally consistent identity layer. This matters for protocols needing global, permissionless distribution (e.g., universal basic income, airdrops) where local trust networks don't scale.

Orb Dependency: Identity issuance relies on a limited supply of proprietary hardware (Orbs) operated by a foundation. This creates supply-chain bottlenecks and a single point of failure/trust. This matters for decentralization purists and projects in regions with limited Orb availability.

Biometric Data: While hashed, the use of iris scans raises significant privacy and regulatory hurdles (e.g., GDPR). The 'Data Custody' model is a complex sell to users. This matters for protocols targeting privacy-conscious regions (EU) or users wary of biometric collection.

No Central Authority: The system is governed by smart contracts on Gnosis Chain. No single entity can revoke a person's 'Circles' identity. This matters for projects prioritizing maximal decentralization and anti-censorship, such as community relief funds or dissident networks.

Cold-Start Problem: New users need existing members to vouch for them, making global, rapid scaling difficult. Network effects are local and slow to build. This matters for projects needing to onboard millions of users quickly or operate in regions with no existing Circles graph.

Dual-Token Model: Users manage a personal currency (CRC) and a community-shared token (like xDai). This creates UX friction and liquidity fragmentation. This matters for VPs of Engineering where user onboarding simplicity and clear tokenomics are critical for adoption.