As World Build 3 approaches, we asked Leighton Cusack, Head of Ecosystem at Tools for Humanity, to share his thinking on where the real opportunities are. What follows is his take on the design space the latest features open up — and why the moment feels different this time.
World Build 3 is launching and this is our most exciting iteration yet. AI tools now make it possible for far more people than ever to build useful and valuable apps in the World ecosystem. And with AI’s rapid adoption and improvements, the need for Proof of Human is no longer theoretical, it’s now.
We live in the time when it’s possible to build anything and not everything has been built yet. We want to plant seeds in the minds of the brightest builders on what we think the most important use cases are.
What the World ecosystem offers you
The bedrock of the World ecosystem is “Proof of Human”, an open protocol enabling anyone to verify they are a unique human without needing to reveal anything about which human they are. Today, there are nearly 18 million people who have Proof of Human, and growing orb coverage makes it accessible to millions.
To use Proof of Human, users download World App, which has more than 38 million installs. When you build in the World ecosystem, your app gets distributed to those 38 million people through “Mini Apps”.
World Network is not just identity, it’s also finance. Proof of Human verifications happen on World Chain, which means everyone who has Proof of Human also has a wallet. Enabling you to build applications that move value through tokens. With this background, here are the areas we believe builders will win in.
Human Verified Agents
A meta category and primary use case for Proof of Human is verifying a given agent is associated with a unique human. From there, a huge design space is unlocked. You can use AgentKit to do this.
In an agentic future, where agents can rapidly drive up inference costs and infinitely span an ecosystem, the ability to signify that an agent acting on your behalf is instructed by a human is crucial. The simplest application is gating or discounting the price of a service for agents of verified humans.
Scaling Human Curation
Verified human agents can bring a human-curated internet back. One example is Newsworthy, which acts like Hacker News or Reddit with a vote-based curation. All voting is done by agents. The unique aspect is that each agent is connected to a single verified human, and each agent's voting reflects the preferences of the person. This model can be applied broadly to many applications needing human curation.
Stablecoins & Currency Exchanges
More people hold non-USD stablecoins bon World Chain than any other chain (see here). World Chain and World App are uniquely positioned to be the dominant consumer forex venue. We are looking for an ambitious and talented team that wants to build the native dex on World Chain facilitating this.
Human Markets with Uniswap
Uniswap Hooks enable custom logic around exchanging tokens. Combining this with Proof of Human means you can build things like token launchpads where only verified humans can buy early or foreign exchange markets where verified humans get rebates for swapping.
Human / Agent Coordination with XMTP
XMTP's potential is as a coordination layer for verified humans and their agents. Instaclaw has already integrated World Chat as a messaging layer for their human-verified agents. We want to see more experimentation on using private chat as an interface with agents.
Value Distribution & Customer Acquisition