Tools for Humanity is expanding its World platform beyond digital identity and crypto payments, incorporating encrypted messaging and financial services into its app as part of a shift toward a super-app model.
The company, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has launched an in-app messaging feature with end-to-end encryption that differentiates between verified and unverified World ID accounts, allowing users to send or request digital assets within chats.
An announcement states that the app now supports third-party mini-apps, including prediction markets, games, and financial tools that operate in conversations. Tools for Humanity plans to introduce optional profile photo verification to help mitigate impersonation and misuse.
The updates were unveiled in San Francisco on Thursday by co-founders Altman and Alex Blania.
World App has also broadened its stablecoin support to include USDC (USDC), EURC (EURC), and several Latin American peso-linked tokens. The release introduces yield products with rates as high as 18% on Worldcoin (WLD) holdings and up to 15% on USDC, utilizing the DeFi protocol Morpho, according to the company.
On the payments front, users in Argentina can pay at over one million merchants using QR codes.
The update further adds US dollar virtual accounts powered by Bridge in 18 countries, including the United States, Japan, and several Latin American markets, allowing users to receive wages, fund accounts from banks, and spend USDC within the app.
Tools for Humanity is a tech firm that led the development of World Network and manages World App. World, previously known as Worldcoin, is the digital identity and financial infrastructure initiative created and maintained by Tools for Humanity.
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The evolution of super apps in the US
Tools for Humanity is part of a growing number of companies aiming to establish super-app ecosystems in Western nations. Following the acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, Elon Musk stated that “buying Twitter” was the “accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
A super app is a unified platform that merges social interaction, payments, commerce, and financial services, a concept popularized in Asia through services like WeChat. Nowadays, various US companies are enhancing crypto, payments, and financial tools as they move toward their own versions of everything apps.
In October, Musk mentioned that X has reconstructed its messaging infrastructure into a separate product known as “X Chat,” describing it as a peer-to-peer, encrypted messaging service intended to rival Telegram and WhatsApp.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 and has had an ongoing dispute with the OpenAI CEO since Musk departed from the organization in 2018, expressed in December on the People by WTF podcast that he appreciates the idea of having a “unified app or website where you can do anything you want” and views China’s WeChat as a model for X.
“There’s no real WeChat outside of China,” he noted.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has also signaled a move toward a super app by rebranding Coinbase Wallet as the “Base app,” which integrates trading, payments, social features, messaging, and mini-apps.
Additionally, the banking app owned by Walmart, OnePay, is expected to introduce cryptocurrency trading and custody later this year, with initial support for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). The app currently offers banking, credit, loans, and wireless plans, positioning itself as a US-style super app.
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