As if ChatGPT wasn’t enough to put the whole world on notice with GenAI matriculations, now comes Worldcoin, aka WLD, a token that was launched this July 24, representing a digital passport that allows owners to prove they’re human, and not a bot, via an eyeball scan to create a World ID, using a machine called Orb.
WLD was trading at $2.17, up 30% from launch, when it reached a fully diluted valuation of $22 billion but is at $1.99 at time of publishing.
Among one of many crypto exchanges, Binance said it would start trading for WLD by Monday with plans to support leveraged trading.
The Launch
Following 3 years of trial, Worldcoin promises to gift people crypto tokens if they scan their eyeballs using an Orb to prove people’s “humanness,” according to the project description
As access to Orbs is still limited, other users can get their tokens by downloading the company’s app until the AI technology is available, including for future airdrops. Currently, only around 150 Orbs are operational. Worldcoin figures show that 1,500 Orbs will be available in 35 global cities this year, helping bring the total number of weekly registrations from 40,000 people a week to 200,000.
Read: Institutional structures drive crypto adoption and store of value
Worldcoin has migrated its protocol to the Optimism mainnet, a layer-2 blockchain built on Ethereum. It is developed under the watchful eyes of Alex Blania, the CEO of Tools for Humanity, the parent organization developing the technology until it achieves its goal of full decentralization.
The hope is for Worldcoin would set up a system whereby every person on earth would be onboarded into a financial distribution model where the token could become a central form of currency where iris scans would be a universal way to create a global identity verification system, with the token serving as an incentive mechanism to acquire users.
Tools for Humanity has created a software development kit where other apps could use people’s World ID that replace other login credentials, including emails and passwords.
Concerns surrounding Worldcoin
When exchanges begin listingWorldcoin, it will create a fiat-driven market and could create potential fraud opportunities with people selling their credentials and benefitting entities to receive airdropped tokens.
There are also concerns that privacy issues could result from scanning someone’s iris which could reveal data related to a person’s sex, ethnicity and even certain medical conditions.
And since Orbs are centralized hardware devices, manufacturers could install backdoors into the system to allow for bogus IDs to be created.
Orbs could incorrectly approve the irises of AI-generated photographs or 3D prints of fake people, creating IDs for millions and benefitting rogue players.
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