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Sam Altman, the chief of OpenAI, the company behind the popular ChatGPT platform, officially unveiled a new project dubbed Worldcoin. It is an eyeball-scanning crypto project that provides digital identity and the facility of crypto payments to the users.
Sam Altman and his team started the work on Worldcoin back in June 2021. The project uses a special device called an "orb" to scan people's eyes and create a unique digital identity. This identity is known as World ID, and it serves as "proof of personhood" in Worldcoin's language. Altman and his co-founders believe that this new method of digital verification is crucial because AI is making it increasingly difficult to tell if something was created by a human or not.
In a statement on Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said: “Worldcoin is an attempt at global scale alignment. The journey will be challenging and the outcome is uncertain.”
The project not only launched a blockchain called OP Mainnet but also started giving out the Worldcoin crypto token to those who already have a World ID. Some of the top cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, Huobi, Bybit and OKX announced the listing of Worldcoin’s native crypto token WLD. Soon after, the Worldcoin (WLD) token entered a strong rally gaining more than 100% and moving past $3.17, within two hours of listing on Binance.
Worldcoin also have plans to expand the signups for eyeball-scanning to more countries. They particularly have focus on expanding into Asia and crypto-friendly countries such as Japan and South Korea. Currently, the company is not planning to launch the project in US citing trough regulatory rules in the country. “There’s clearly a great lack of certainty, to say it as mildly as possible,” Altman told Bloomberg. “I think it’s a shame.”
Altman also mentioned that the excitement surrounding AI has contributed to creating more enthusiasm around Worldcoin. “There’s much more interest and understanding and excitement, particularly as AI has become more of a factor in the world than when we started the project,” he said.
Tools of Humanity is the startup that would be working on Worldcoin applications. Project co-founder Alex Blania said that Worldcoin would be focusing on greater aspects of decentralization.
Some people have raised doubts about the safety of information and privacy regarding the Worldcoin token. They are concerned about the use of iris scanners. Moreover, in May 2023, a report suggested that hackers successfully stole the login credentials of several operators. However, the team assured that no personal user data was compromised.
Blania mentioned that the project has improved its security measures after facing two recent problems. These issues were the theft of login credentials for certain Worldcoin operators responsible for signing up new users, and the unauthorized sale of World IDs on the black market.
Blania stated that the impact of these incidents was not significant. Additionally, the team has introduced two-factor identity authentication and a security feature that can identify when a login occurs from a location far away from where the user originally signed up for an account. Blania acknowledged that there might still be some fraudulent activities, especially in the early stages, as it won't be a perfect system right away.