Circle’s stablecoin launches on Sam Altman-backed World project

Stablecoin issuer Circle has launched its USDC stablecoin on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's crypto project World, according to announcements posted Wednesday.The move comes on the heels of both blockchain projects making major inroads in the United States. Last week, Circle debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in a highly anticipated public offering that saw its shares surge in early trading. In April, Worldcoin announced its launch of operations in the U.S., a notable milestone for the controversial project, which has faced regulatory scrutiny in several countries."Almost two million humans on World already held bridged USDC in their World App wallets," World said in a statement. "It’s now upgraded to native USDC issued directly by Circle. World is uniquely globally distributed with over 27 million users in over 160 countries."Circle also said its cross-chain transfer protocol, CCTP V2, is also live on World's blockchain, according to the statement. The initiative will make "transferring USDC across supported chains faster and more cost effective. This means developers, businesses and consumers alike can quickly and easily move funds and fully benefit from DeFi composability," said World.World recently debuted in in six American cities, including Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco. Users who register for a World ID undergo an iris scan to verify they are human, after which they receive WLD tokens. The core principle behind the project is to build infrastructure that can distinguish humans from bots in an increasingly AI-driven internet. "AI is rapidly evolving. The tools to distinguish humans from machines should scale at a similar pace to help prepare humanity for the [Artificial General Intelligence] era," World said last month. In order to help fuel its U.S. rollout, World sold $135 million worth of WLD last month to project backers, Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto.World also has plans to issue a Visa card that will allow users to pay for products and services using their WLD tokens and other digital assets.Tools for Humanity, the core developer behind Worldcoin, was founded in 2021 and launched the Worldcoin protocol in 2023. The company was co-founded by Altman and CEO Alex Blania.Circle's IPOCircle is the issuer of the second-largest U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin in the world, USDC. The stablecoin has a supply over $60 billion, according to The Block Data Dashboard.The company's shares jumped nearly 200% above their IPO price during Circle's first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange."Our transformation into being a public company is a significant and powerful milestone – the world is ready to start upgrading and moving to the internet financial system," Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said at the time.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.