Sam Altmans Crypto Project Worldcoin Got More Coins in Latest $115M Raise

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Image credits: Worldcoin

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Welcome to Chain Reaction.

You have change ? No? Well, Worldcoin did.

Tools for Humanity, the team building Worldcoin, raised $115 million in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital.

The crypto-focused project was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman with a three-part mission: to create a global ID, a global currency, and an app that enables payment, purchases, and transfers using its token alongside other cryptocurrencies and traditional assets.

Worldcoin has faced some concerns from those concerned about privacy risks, as it requires scanning the eyeballs of a billion people with a five-pound color sphere called The Orb in exchange for its token. .

For good reason, people are becoming apprehensive and sensitive about biometrics, especially when you add a dose of crypto, Spencer Bogart, general partner at Blockchain Capital, wrote in a post on Wednesday.

However, what is really happening under the hood is that the orb takes a picture of an iris and the device then generates a unique encoding of the randomness of the iris (an iris code), added Bogart. By default, the original biometrics are immediately destroyed and the iris code is the only thing that leaves the orb.

Although the public may be hesitant, investors are still diving into the project as it is one of the few crypto companies to still receive large sums of capital in the midst of an ongoing bear market.

Other Series C investors include a16z, Bain Capital Crypto, and Distributed Global. In March 2022, Worldcoin raised $100 million at a valuation of $3 billion.

In 2021, Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania told TechCrunch that the currency was part of a larger effort to drive a more unified and equitable global economy, driven by the internet economy, which cryptos -Currencies notably did not nail during their early years.

The latest raise will go towards bot detection, research and development, and the expansion of its Worldcoin project and app. Worldcoin is currently in beta testing and has onboarded around two million users across five continents.

Bogart and Blockchain Capital believe that Worldcoin could become the biggest crypto on-ramp and the World App could become the most widely adopted crypto wallet. All of this is to be determined.

This week in web3

A group backed by Arrington Capital will acquire the assets of Celsius

Following a bankruptcy process, the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network are set to be acquired by a consortium called Fahrenheit. Behind this name you will find a group of bidders led by the investment company Arrington Capital. Other members of the consortium are crypto mining firm US Bitcoin Corp., Proof Group, Steven Kokinos and Ravi Kaza.

Take a look at Wolfs first cohort of Bitcoin-based startups (TC+)

In Wolfs Clothing (Wolf), a startup accelerator launched by asset management firm Stone Ridge, wants to strengthen bitcoin-focused applications and use cases. Its first cohort, Wolfpack 1, was made up of eight teams and 23 founders from 10 countries, and they pitched their ideas on Wednesday during a demo day, exclusively covered by TechCrunch+.

Montenegro court overturns bail for Terraform founder Do Kwons

A high court in Montenegro has overturned an earlier lower court ruling that would have released Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon on bail. The decision comes nearly two weeks after Montenegro’s lower court agreed to release Kwon and his former colleague Chang-joon Han on bail.

Mastercard sees a lot of promise in blockchain technology if security and simplicity come first (TC+)

As the world of web3 has seen a significant influx of capital, innovation and talent, more work is needed to ensure that traditional players as well as new ones can enter the ecosystem with confidence. People look at crypto and think of it as an investment, but there’s a whole industry that’s much more useful to the financial industries as a whole, said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercards EVP and Head of Crypto and Blockchain, during from a blockchain-focused panel at the company’s North American Innovation Day event. The technology itself is very promising.

Solana launches ChatGPT plugin to help users interact with its network (TC+)

As the AI ​​market continues to heat up, a number of crypto players big and small are diving into it. The Solana Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the Solana layer-1 blockchain, has officially integrated AI into its network with a ChatGPT plugin developed by Solana Labs, the team exclusively told TechCrunch+. (Solana Labs is the team creating blockchain products and tools.)

The last capsule

For last week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, a protocol that provides an oracle network to power smart contracts.

Chainlink is also known as a web3 service platform that connects people, businesses and data with the web3 world. And for good reason, it has enabled over $7 trillion in transaction volume across DeFi, gaming, NFT, and other major industries.

Prior to co-founding Chainlink, Nazarov co-founded four other companies, most recently SmartContract which focused on smart contracts.

We discussed a number of things regarding smart contracts, Oracle networks, cross-chain interoperability, and Nazarov’s long-term vision for Chainlink.

We also dove into:

Unexpected use cases of smart contracts Crypto collateral How traditional businesses can tokenize assets AI and blockchain technology CCIP Updates

Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the latest episodes, and leave us a comment if you like what you hear!

Follow the Money Dispersion Capital Launches $40M Fund Focused on Decentralized Infrastructure Decentralized Science Startup LabDAO Raises $3.6M Openfort Raises $3M to Create Frictionless Crypto Accounts for Gamers The Platform Institution-Focused Digital Asset Platform PYOR Raises $4M Fastlane Application Automation Platform Raises $2.3M

This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reports.

To get a roundup of the biggest and most important crypto stories from TechCrunchs delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here.

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