All about Worldcoin, built by ChatGPT founder
What it is, why it's gathering so much attention, and more.
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In the ever-evolving landscape of the crypto space, a fresh contender has emerged that caused polemic discussions: Worldcoin.
What sets this cryptocurrency apart, and why is it getting so much attention in an already bustling crypto industry?
Well, for starters Worldcoin is founded by Sam Altman, the cofounder of Open AI, the company behind the revolutionary ChatGPT.
But there is much more than this. Let’s dive in.
Key Facts about Worldcoin
Sal Altmant came up with the idea of Worldcoin in 2019, and brought Max Novendstern, a philosopher, and Alex Blania, a physicist, on board to make his idea a reality.
To do this, they incorporated a software company in the US called Tools for Humanity in August 2019.
Max was the original CEO of Worldcoin, but it seems that some time back in 2021 he stepped away, and currently Alex is the CEO and the de facto face of the project, while Sam remains as Charmain and signs off on the company’s decisions.
In October 2022, the Worldcoin Foundation was incorporated in the Cayman Islands - it has no owners or shareholders and seems to be governed by a pod consisting of 3 people that also govern the crypto project.
In total, Worldcoin raised a total of $240M from VCs.
Worldcoin’s mission is to create a globally inclusive identity and financial network. This is very vague, so to translate it, essentially is to guide humanity in adjusting to this world with increasing AI significance
.
Convenient for the cofounder and current CEO of OpenAI to say so…
It seems that one of the main goals is to establish a digital ID framework that will make it possible to differentiate between humans and increasingly human-like AI.
How does it all work?
Well, there are 3 main components in the Worldcoin Ecosystem:
World ID
Worldcoin Token (WLD)
World App
Let’s elaborate.
1. World ID
World ID is a proof of personhood mechanism - meaning it’s supposed to work like a digital passport that lets you prove you are a unique and real person.
Using this ID, you can authenticate and verify yourself in different applications (web, mobile, etc). Technically, you do this in a privacy-preserving way, remaining anonymous but, since this project is relatively new and the software is not really open source yet, the crypto community is yet to verify this point.
2. Worldcoin Token (WLD)
Worldcoin Token, WLD, is the cryptocurrency of the Worldcoin project.
It is an ERC-20 token, built on the Ethereum and Optimism blockchain.
As the Worldcoin project aims to have useful applications being built on top of the financial and identity infrastructure, WLD token is issued to all network participants to align their incentives around the growth of the network.
The token was recently launched - July 24th, 2023 - which is the reason why so much has been discussed about Worldcoin recently.
It has an initial supply of 10B, and it seems that the allocation is currently quite centralized: 75% to the Worldcoin community held by the foundation, 10% to the initial team, 2% for a reserve, and 14% to early investors.
What is the WLD token’s utility? Well, stay tuned, because it is still a TBC (to be confirmed).
3. World App
It’s essentially the front end of World ID: individuals will need to use this App to create their World ID credentials, and it aspires to be the main platform for other potential use cases such as the financial infrastructure it aims to become.
So what’s all the fuss about?
Now that we understand the basics of the project, let’s unwrap the polemic pieces. And here, we are talking about the mechanism of how the World ID is generated, and what it means.
According to Worldcoin, the maximum level of assurance to prove you are an unique and real human being is to use the iris of your eye as biometrics.
Worldcoin created this high-tech state-of-the-art device called “the orb” that is used to scan the iris of the eye of each individual and uses it to generate a World ID (which is in sync with the World App which you need to download in the first place).
Based on Worldcoin’s data, they currently have:
around 350 active Orbs operated by hand-picked operators that submitted their applications for this role,
over 2M ID sign-ups across 34 countries from people from 120 different countries.
What’s the incentive mechanism to get people to scan their iris?
Well, for the Orbs operators, they receive $1 to $5 per person they onboard.
For users, it’s the WLD tokens they receive, which were recently launched as mentioned earlier, causing the project to receive a lot more attention.
However, apparently, users only get 1 free WLD a week, which is worth less than $2 at the moment. So not a very profitable reward to motivate people to scan their iris. Maybe this is why Worldcoin’s current focus is more on developing countries which will value this monetary reward much more than in developed countries.
Final Thoughts & Concerns.
Mmm, where do I start?
Let’s first zoom in and talk about Worldcoin itself.
Privacy concerns: technically, you can choose to opt out of your data being used after scanning your iris, but well, you have to trust them… this is because only the hardware part of how the orb works is open source, so it can’t be really verified at this point whether the data is being used for other things or not. This is already causing governments around the world scrutinizing this project, and some even banning it in their territory.
Decentralization: the WLD allocation, the unclear utility, and the not fully open source status of the project raise a lot of concerns about how decentralized the project is. Granted, it is at a very initial stage, but for the kind of problems it is aiming to solve, it is very sensible to be in the hands of a corporation.
Scope: based on Worldcoin’s mission, which is to build an inclusive identity and financial network, it seems to be quite broad of a scope.
Risks: well, Worldcoin’s webpage names a lot of them, including WLD adoption, regulations, hardware dependency, data issues, and so on…
Now, let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture here.
My first point is…
I think the iris scanning piece is a bit shocking for people, particularly if you see the device. Anyone who watches Black Mirror will definitely be triggered.
But if you take a step back, technically it is not too different than my phone camera scanning my face to unlock the screen. It might not be using the iris directly, but is it that different?
My second point is…
I guess the most difficult part to digest here is the “proof of personhood” piece, which will be used to distinguish human beings from human-like AI. It is very intimidating to think that we have reached a point where proving that we are humans is a problem that needs to be solved.
Bu again, when logging into a webpage and being asked to select all the images that contain a particular object, or to slide a piece of puzzle to the right place… all these are mechanisms to determine you are an actual human logging in, so is it that crazy to think about increasing the thoroughness of the mechanism considering that AI is advancing?
And I suppose the deep fakes we see online are already evidence of where we are heading, so can we judge Worldcoin for aiming to solve this?
This brings me to my third and last point…
If Worldcoin is one of the first to aim to tackle this problem, does it mean this is the direction we are heading towards and we will see similar projects emerge sooner than later?
………………….
Even thoug my mind can keep up with the argument, I still find it disturbing to think that in the near future, I might need to actually prove I’m a human in different aspects of my life.
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