Launch of Sam Altman’s Worldcoin eyeball scanning crypto project

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Worldcoin, Sam Altman’s audacious eye-scanning crypto startup, has begun the global rollout of its services to help build a reliable solution to “distinguish humans from online AI”, enable “global democratic processes” and “significantly increase economic opportunity”.

The startup, which has raised around $250 million in total and counts Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Reid Hoffman among its backers, said it was rolling out its identity technology as well as the token internationally. Individuals can download World App, the startup’s protocol-enabled wallet software, and visit an Orb, the startup’s helmet-shaped eyeball scanning verification device, to receive their World ID.

As TechCrunch previously noted, Worldcoin is perhaps one of the boldest efforts to bribe the world into adopting its currency. The startup, founded by OpenAI CEO Altman and Alex Blania, wants to put a crypto wallet (and some of their currency) on every human smartphone, but to do that they need to find a way to determine if someone is a unique human.

Worldcoin, which has been in the works for over three years, has quietly signed up individuals in many countries, including India, giving them 25 Worldcoin tokens. But the journey so far has not been very easy. The project has been criticized for its exploitative practices in poor countries. Between May 2021 and July 2023, more than 2 million people verified their global IDs on an Orb in more than 30 different countries, the startup said.

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin vendors/volunteers/others have reached the neighborhood. 25 tokens for your retinal scan. One of the pamphlets: pic.twitter.com/eXuUztNKVO

— Manish Singh (@refsrc) March 1, 2023

Worldcoin’s website outlines its main potential applications: bolstering incentive strategies such as coupons and loyalty programs traditionally susceptible to fraud, combating bots through identity confirmation, and facilitating a democratic governance mechanism on a global scale.

Worldcoin holds about 20% of all its tokens, which are not launched in the United States at the moment. For the first 15 years, the startup caps the total supply at 10 billion “WLD” tokens, he said. (More on that below.) At launch on Monday, the maximum circulating supply of the token, which is based on ERC-20, is 143 million, Worldcoin writes in a whitepaper.

“If successful, we believe Worldcoin could dramatically increase economic opportunity, scale a trusted solution to distinguish humans for online AI while preserving privacy, enable global democratic processes, and possibly show a potential path to AI-funded UBI,” the statement said in a statement.

Worldcoin is an “attempt at global alignment,” he said, prompting a jab from Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and familiar with the cryptocurrency world, who found it “cute.”

Tokenomics Worldcoin

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