OpenAI CEO Raises Nearly $100M For Creepy Crypto Project That Uses Orb

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has raised nearly $100 million, including from indicted FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and former Jeffrey Epstein comrade Reid Hoffman, for his latest cryptocurrency project that s press a scary eye-scanning orb to verify users.

The funds will be used to advance Worldcoin – Altman’s plan for a secure global cryptocurrency that offers free crypto in exchange for scanning users’ eyeballs.

However, the technology associated with Worldcoin’s proof of personality verification is still in beta and is expected to launch in the coming weeks.

He’s been slow to get going since his inception in 2019 as co-founder and boss of OpenAI, Altman has been busy finalizing a deal with Microsoft where the tech giant invested $10 billion in ChatGPT from OpenAI.

Worldcoin’s beta technology is called The Orb, which captures an image of a user’s iris to embed no matter who they are or where they are in the world.

The image is then converted into an alphanumeric hash code – a process that cannot be reversed, TechCrunch reported.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is raising $100 million to fund Worldcoin, a secure global cryptocurrency that offers free crypto in exchange for scanning users’ eyeballs. The Washington Post via Getty Images

If the code has never been downloaded before, it is then saved in the Worldcoin database and generates a crypto wallet with a unique QR code.

It is “the first token to be globally and freely distributed to people just for being a unique individual,” according to the company’s website.

Among Worldcoin’s angel investors: Bankman-Fried, who is awaiting trial on 13 criminal charges related to stealing customers from his now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, and billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who – according to a new report – visited Jeffrey Epsteins private island.

It is unclear how much of the $100 million came from Bankman-Fried or Hoffman.

The fundraising was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Coinbase, Day One Ventures and Variant Fund’s Jesse Walden, according to TechCrunch.

The investment was made at a valuation of $1 billion.

Sam Bankman-Fried is one of the investors in Worldcoin. He is an alleged fraudster who has been accused of defrauding investors from his FTX crypto exchange. The multi-year program ended when FTX filed for bankruptcy in November.Matthew McDermott

The system was created with privacy efforts in mind.

As a result, the database is full of hash codes rather than photos of eyeballs, and users are identified by QR wallet codes rather than their real names, according to TechCrunch.

Once a unique wallet is generated, users will receive free money – Worldcoin tokens.

On Monday, $1 equals 21.97 Worldcoins (WDC), according to crypto.com.

Billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has also invested in Worldcoin. A new report obtained by The Wall Street Journal earlier this month revealed that Hoffman had traveled to Epstein’s island and had other plans to meet with the convicted sex offender.REUTERS

Users integrated into the Worldcoin database will receive 80% of the crypto supply, while 10% will be reserved for the company and 10% will go to investors.

These investors include 31-year-old former billionaire Bankman-Fried, who amassed an estimated net worth of $26 billion during the bitcoin boom and became a poster boy for crypto when he founded the high-level crypto exchange FTX in 2019.

He is now an alleged fraudster, accused by the US Department of Justice of defrauding FTX investors in a scheme that ended when the crypto firm filed for bankruptcy in November.

While it’s unclear how much money Bankman-Fried contributed to Worldcoin’s $100 million fund, he was known to be very generous in his philanthropy, donating $5.2 million to the Worldcoin’s 2020 campaign. President Joe Biden, making him one of the biggest donors to a Democratic political candidate.

Alongside Bankman-Fried, 55-year-old Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman is among the Worldcoin investors.

Worldcoin was co-founded by Altman and Alex Blania (pictured). Alex Blania/Facebook Worldcoin onboards users using The Orb, a camera that takes pictures of people’s irises and then turns the image into a hash code. Worldcoin

Earlier this month, a new report obtained by The Wall Street Journal revealed that Hoffman visited Epstein’s Caribbean residence – also known as “paedophile island” – in 2014.

The report revealed plans to revisit the island later that year, and also to spend the night at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse to attend a ‘breakfast’ with the convicted sex offender the following day. Morning.

The Worldcoin currency will operate as an Ethereum layer 2-based crypto, which means it takes advantage of the speed and lower transaction costs on the Ethereum blockchain while having its own economy.

Co-founders Altman and Alex Blania use layer 2 cryptography with the goal of making the global economy beneficial to “everyone on the planet, regardless of their country of origin,” according to the Worldcoin site.

Blania told TechCrunch that other cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, have yet to do this.

“Bitcoin is not scalable for billions of people,” Blania said, according to TechCrunch. “As we see today, it’s very expensive because transactions are slow.”

However, the goal of integrating every person on this planet into the Worldcoin system is very demanding, given that Orb technology is needed, but there are only 30 Orb prototypes.

Still, more than 700 users can be onboarded using a single Orb per week, as seen in early testing in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe, Blania told TechCrunch.

And every unique user onboarded through The Orb will receive a share of crypto.

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