Worldcoin: The Cryptocurrency That Wants To Scan Your Eyeballs (2024)

After three years in development, digital ID platform Worldcoin officially launched on July 24, 2023. Co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Worldcoin aims to provide its users with a verified digital identity, plus a cryptocurrency token—helpfully named Worldcoin (WLD)—and a crypto wallet app.

According to Worldcoin, advances in artificial intelligence have made it increasingly difficult to tell whether online activity, written text, digital artwork or really anything that exists on the internet came from real humans or AI. The company proposes to help resolve this confusion by deploying a sort of digital passport, based on what it calls “proof of personhood.”

“The goal is simple: A global financial and identity network based on proof of personhood,” Altman wrote on Twitter. “This feels especially important in the AI era. I’m hopeful Worldcoin can contribute to conversations about how we share access, benefits, and governance of future AI systems.”

Worldcoin’s platform verifies a user’s identity by scanning their iris to create personal, secure identification codes. The codes are saved on a decentralized blockchain, and the company claims they cannot be duplicated or spoofed to create false identities or engage in fraud.

After signing up more than 2 million users in the beta testing stage, the company claims that 16 million users have registered with Worldcoin. It is currently rolling out scanning operations in dozens of cities in 20 countries worldwide.

What Is Worldcoin?

Worldcoin is a digital identification platform that aims to provide each person on earth with a convenient way to verify that they are a real human and not a bot or an AI algorithm.

The company building Worldcoin—Tools for Humanity—was cofounded by Altman, who is better known for creating ChatGPT. Ironically, Altman has played a central role in sparking the current AI gold rush, which has significantly worsened the very problem Worldcoin proposes to solve.

Worldcoin has built its digital passport system using the cryptographic and blockchain tools that support the wider world of cryptocurrency. It also supports the WLD crypto token, plus a payments platform.

How Does Worldcoin Work?

Think of Worldcoin as a three-legged stool: It only works if people adopt and use three mutually reinforcing components.

World ID

The heart of the platform is World ID, which the company claims will enable users to “verify their humanness” online while maintaining their privacy. This so-called “proof of personhood” is created by an iris-scanning device called the Orb.

Much like fingerprints, every person’s iris pattern is different. The Orb scans a user’s iris and uses its structure to create a unique identification code called an IrisCode. The code is not associated with a user’s personal information—it exists solely to prevent people from acquiring more than one World ID.

After the Orb scans your iris and saves an anonymous IrisCode, it then issues your World ID. It also permanently deletes each iris image. The system does not depend on pointing scanners at your eyeballs each time you need to verify your identity.

Each World ID is added to the Worldcoin blockchain, and users deploy a cryptographically secure app to identify themselves.

As of this week’s launch, Worldcoin Orbs are available in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, Paris, Lisbon, Mexico City, São Paulo, Nairobi, New York, San Francisco and approximately 25 other cities around the world.

World App

The World App is the repository for your World ID. Worldcoin claims that the app preserves users’ privacy while also providing access to a growing roster of decentralized finance applications.

The app functions as a crypto wallet, but its primary purpose is to store user credentials so that users can verify themselves on any third-party application.

Besides your World ID, the app can hold Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC, and the company says more cryptos will be supported in the future.

WLD Cryptocurrency Token

Once users create a World ID and download the World App, they get access to the WLD cryptocurrency token.

WLD was issued to users who took part in the beta program. A large quantity of WLD was airdropped to users on Monday as part of the platform’s official launch. Crypto exchanges have listed WLD for trading, including KuCoin and Binance, the world’s largest exchange by volume.

According to the Worldcoin white paper, a total of 10 billion WLD will be issued over the course of 15 years. Currently 143 million WLD are circulating as of the official launch. Of this amount, 43 million were allocated to verified World App users, and 100 million were sent to market makers to facilitate trading.

Criticisms of Worldcoin

The project has already received a fair amount of criticism for its lofty goals and dubious methods.

After launching, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin expressed his concerns about Worldcoin in a blog post. He argued that the platform’s iris scans could be harvesting more information than the company is letting on, or that someone could potentially scan someone else’s iris in order to determine whether they had a World ID.

An April 2022 MIT Technology Review article claimed that Worldcoin used “deceptive marketing practices, collected more personal data than it acknowledged, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent.”

The company issued a 25-page rebuttal to MIT Technology Review’s criticisms. “We want to make it very clear that Worldcoin is not a data company and our business model does not involve exploiting or selling personal user data,” it wrote. “Worldcoin is only interested in a user’s uniqueness—i.e., that they have not signed up for Worldcoin before—not their identity.”

Worldcoin has also been criticized for widely promoting the platform in the developing world. A significant portion of new users are in Asia and Africa, raising concerns about exploitation.

“Most alarming to me is how the WorldCoin team has boasted about how many users they have. When in reality they have been exploiting people in developing countries,” tweeted pseudonymous crypto influencer ZachXBT.

Finally, in an October 2021 early funding round, Worldcoin received an investment by Sam Bankman-Fried, the notorious founder of failed crypto exchange FTX.