coinedition.com
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, launched a cryptocurrency named Worldcoin Token on Monday 24 July. Altman, the American entrepreneur, aims to distribute free Worldcoin tokens (WLD) for everyone through the Worldcoin project in an attempt to solve income inequality according to Semafour.
Altman had raised $115 million to fund Worldcoin, and the project had onboarded nearly two million people on its platform in its beta stage, Binance has already listed the WorldCoin token in its exchange platform.
ChatGPT upscaled the capabilities of artificial intelligence, and in Altman’s new project he aims to create “an inclusive global cryptocurrency that will be available to anyone who verifies their unique personhood with the Orb.”
The Orb, a custom biometric device, scans irises to ensure only one person can sign up and get their free Worldcoin Token. The iris is used to create a unique ID to tell people and bots apart, while it also validates that each person has only one ID. According to Worldcoin’s blog, the Orb “verifies a person’s uniqueness through iris recognition, while ensuring their privacy through zero-knowledge cryptography.”
The Orb was met with some criticism. Edward Snowden, an American- Russian consultant expressed his disapproval on Twitter.
This looks like it produces a global (hash) database of people’s iris scans (for “fairness”), and waves away the implications by saying “We deleted the scans!” Yeah, but you save the *hashes* produced by the scans. Hashes that match *future* scans. Don’t catalogue eyeballs.
Individuals earn up to 25 free Worldcoin tokens at the launch, if the token is available in their region. The new token won’t be available in the United States as Worldcoin mentioned in their terms of use, “WLD tokens are not intended to be available for use, purchase, or access by US persons, including US citizens, residents, or persons in the United States, or companies incorporated, located, or resident in the United States, or who have a registered agent in the United States. We do not make WLD available to such US persons.”