Tech startup wants to give everyone on Earth free crypto, all they want is scan your eyes

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Ealy this summer, a cryptocurrency startup from tech prodigy Sam Altman called Worldcoin was launched with the plan that it wants to donate free amounts of its namesake coin to build its user base. Sounds reasonable, I mean who doesn’t love a free cheese sample when shopping at Costco?

Global vision starts with a scan of your irises

Altman wants to donate small amounts of crypto to anyone on the planet who wants them. To bring this vision into focus, physical scans of the eyes of recipients are needed who:

Provide “proof of personality,” which is Worldcoin’s art term for identity.

In a recent corporate blog post on how it will work, Worldcoin says it is recruiting dozens of entrepreneurs to use eye scanners to promote entry into the free competition. The scanner – which is cleverly called “Orb” – looks like a silver basketball with a large black circular piece of glass that is flush with the surface to protect the internal camera. Its minimalist design seems to inspire curiosity and conversation among prospects, making it easier to sign up for traders who earn Worldcoin for the number of successful scans.

Crypto technology as a step towards universal basic income

According to the Worldcoin website, traders have registered 130,000 pairs of eyes and facial images using around 30 devices in 12 countries. At full production capacity, they plan to deploy 4,000 orbs per month to capture more eyeball scans in order to reach Altman’s goal of one billion users in the system within two years.

Biometric identifiers for cryptography are bad in concept and execution

Altman has been an avowed globalist for years, touting the adoption of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in several media interviews. He sees Worldcoin as an enabling technological advance that could make the global UBI real for billions of people.

Despite this seemingly unifying utopian vision, it actually has serious flaws.

It’s not free. Participants exchange their lifelong identity for an unspecified amount of digital money. It’s a bad deal for everyone. Worldcoin repeatedly states on its website that eye analysis is completely voluntary and would only apply to people who want a free stash of crypto. Okay, how does this fit in with Altman’s stated desire to use Worldcoin as a ramp into a UBI-based dystopia? coded. But that doesn’t give any delay or way to confirm that the footage has been deleted – that’s a major red flag. Crypto was designed to end centralized control of finances, banking, and income potential – not allow its worst case use as UBI.

Despite the growing backlash from privacy advocates such as Edward Snowden, this project continues to move forward. We should not turn a blind eye to these types of projects, but rather watch closely, while keeping our irises to ourselves.

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