Tech
Official launch of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Crypto project
It has taken three years, multiple digital asset market dislocations, and hundreds of millions of dollars, but the eye-scanning crypto project known as Worldcoin has officially launched.
“Worldcoin is an attempt at alignment on a global scale,” the digital identity and crypto payments project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement Monday. “The journey will be challenging and the outcome is uncertain.”
Both the digital asset market and the tech industry in general have undergone major changes in the years since the project was founded. From June 2021, when Bloomberg first reported on Altman’s new startup, the price of Bitcoin took a roller coaster ride from around $32,000 to a high of over $67,000 and back to under $30,000.
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Some of the startup’s original backers have been swept up in the cryptocurrency market turmoil, including collapsed hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of bankrupt exchange FTX. AND artificial intelligence has usurped cryptocurrencies as the latest tech trend, with Altman himself emerging as one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence.
Worldcoin, like Altman, straddles the worlds of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. The project uses a small device called a “sphere” to scan people’s eyeballs in order to generate a unique digital identity. This identity, or World ID, grants its holder “proof of personality” in Worldcoin jargon. Altman and his cofounders say the new approach to digital verification is essential at a time when artificial intelligence is making it harder than ever to determine what was created by humans and what was not.
In addition to throwing a blockchain Called OP Mainnet, the project also announced initial distribution of the Worldcoin crypto token to those who have already obtained a World ID and plans to expand eyeball scan enrollments to more countries.
The process hasn’t always been smooth. When enrolling people, the project was criticized for relying on alleged deceptive and exploitative practices in countries like Indonesia, Ghana and Chile. And despite the buzz around AI, many in the industry question whether the sector is been caught up in a hype cycle: for example, an academic article recently noted a deterioration in ChatGPT’s performance over time.
Altman said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the AI fervor has helped generate more excitement around Worldcoin. “There is much more interest, understanding and enthusiasm, especially as artificial intelligence has become a bigger factor in the world than when we started the project,” he said.
The current global regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies, characterized by crackdowns and lawsuits, presents a conundrum for the project. The Worldcoin token is currently not available in WE, where tensions over cryptocurrency regulation have intensified in recent months. Altman and his co-founder Alex Blania published a letter Monday saying the rules are less clear in the United States.
“There is clearly a great lack of certainty, to put it as euphemistically as possible,” Altman told Bloomberg. “I think it’s a shame.”
Altman said he hopes the United States can come to “a rational position” in terms of regulating cryptocurrencies. He previously testified before the Senate in May, urging Congress regulate AI.
Blania, who is also CEO of Tools for Humanity, the startup that develops Worldcoin applications, said he is excited to expand the use of Worldcoin in Asia, particularly in Japan and South Korea. Worldcoin has had more than 2 million signups, according to its website. Blania also noted that the project has improved its security following two recent issues: the theft of login credentials for some Worldcoin operators tasked with registering new users and the black market sale of World IDs.
Blania said the impact of these incidents has been minimal, and in addition to implementing two-factor identity authentication, there is now also a security feature that can detect when a login is geographically far from where the user has registered an account. “Of course there will be fraud,” Blania said. “It won’t be a perfect system, especially in the initial phase.”
Blania suggested that Worldcoin would move beyond being seen as a crypto project, a move reminiscent of the rebranding strategy recently undertaken by many other operators in the digital asset space.
“Cryptocurrencies are hopefully a label that will be dropped in the next few years anyway, and it’s essentially the technology used to build certain products,” Blania said.
Both Blania and Altman emphasized that decentralization, a core principle of cryptocurrencies, is an important part of their mission. Altman said he isn’t worried about giving the impression he has too much control over the digital token market.
“In the cryptocurrency world, I am unknown or close to it, and if so, not very well-liked,” Altman said. He added: “If I started a new AI business, people might say something about undue influence.”