What would your answer be if someone offered you money in exchange for scanning your retina? This is just as unique as a fingerprint. Biometric data is currently used for identity verification and will be used in many other fields in the future. The problem is that there is not much difference between scanning your biometric data and handing over your fingerprint or identification information to someone.
WorldCoin (WLD)
Those who scanned their retinas with the device called Iris received 25 WLD Coins in their wallets and sold these tokens for around $100 today. This altcoin, listed by Binance exchange, is a controversial project. Initiated by the CEO of OpenAI, the venture scans people’s retinas with a sphere and gives them identification numbers. Sam Altman recently denied allegations that the data is stored, stating that after unique numbers are generated, biometric data is automatically deleted.
A good defense, but there is no guarantee that this is how it was done in the past, today, and in the future. We have to trust Sam. Therefore, they cannot come to people in the US and ask to scan their retinas. $100 seems like a low fee for selling your biometric data.
But what about those who sell their identification information for bonuses? Those who perform KYC verification on unreliable platforms and continue their way by receiving $10-25 bonuses? Hacked identity systems? Who are stolen from hacked exchanges? As technology advances, the security of personal data will become even more important. It is likely that when this happens, most people’s private data will be available for sale on the darknet.
Is WorldCoin Reliable?
The nightmare of crypto scammers, an on-chain guru, a friend of justice, and many more adjectives can be added. ZachXBT has done a lot for cryptocurrency investors. He even faced million-dollar litigation costs for exposing criminals. He just made comments about WorldCoin, which has just been listed on the Binance exchange. According to him, this project is definitely unreliable.
“What worries me the most is how the WorldCoin team boasts about how many users they have. In reality, they were exploiting people in developing countries. Verification of being a real person seems to be applied only at the registration level for now. This led to a black market for accounts. Currently, accounts have dropped to as low as $1 on Telegram. According to Coindesk, WorldCoin increased the percentage of tokens allocated to institutions from 20% to 25%.”
Another argument is the marketing strategy followed for WLD Coin;
“In one of the initial launch videos of WorldCoin, they say ‘WLD is better than BTC‘ and ‘Bitcoin is only in the hands of a few wealthy individuals.’ Then, we have all the privacy/security concerns regarding iris scans, which were well explained in the latest Vitalik blog post. Although I am primarily against WorldCoin due to the aforementioned issues, I believe the overall CT narrative around the token will change depending on its performance (price increase = good project, price decrease = dystopian nightmare).”
Still, is it worth taking this risk for 25 WLD Coins?