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Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Crypto Project Gets More Coins in Latest $115 Million Raise
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Welcome back to Chain reaction.
Do you have some coin? NO? Well, Worldcoin did it.
Tools for humanityteam building Worldcoin, raised $115 million in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital.
The cryptography-focused project was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman with a three-part mission: create a global ID, a global currency, and an app that allows payments, purchases, and transfers using his token, along with other cryptocurrencies and traditional assets.
Worldcoin has faced some concerns from people concerned about privacy risks because it requires scanning the eyeballs of a billion people with a five-pound chromatic sphere called “The Orb” in exchange for its token.
“For good reason, people become concerned and sensitive when it comes to biometric data, particularly when you add a dose of cryptocurrency,” wrote Spencer Bogart, general partner at Blockchain Capital, in a send on Wednesday.
“However, what really happens behind the scenes is that the sphere takes a photo of an iris, and the device subsequently generates a unique encoding of the iris randomness (an ‘iris code’),” Bogart added. “By default, the original biometric is immediately destroyed, and the iris code is the only thing that leaves the sphere.”
While the public may be hesitant, investors are still diving into the project as it is one of the few cryptocurrency companies still receiving large sums of capital in an ongoing bear market.
Other investors in the Series C round include a16z, Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global. In March 2022, Worldcoin raised $100 million at a $3 billion valuation.
In 2021, Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania he told TechCrunch that the currency is part of a larger effort to promote a more unified and equitable global economy, led by the internet economy, something that cryptocurrencies in particular failed to accomplish in their early years.
The latest increase will go towards bot detection, research and development, and the expansion of the Worldcoin project and application. Worldcoin is currently in the beta testing phase and has involved approximately two million users across five continents.
Bogart and Blockchain Capital believe that Worldcoin could become the largest stepping stone into cryptocurrencies and that the World App could become the most widely adopted crypto wallet. All this is to be defined.
This week on web3
The Arrington Capital-backed group will acquire Celsius’ assets
Following a bankruptcy process, the assets of failed cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network are about to be acquired by a consortium called Fahrenheit. Behind this name hides a group of bidders led by the investment company Arrington Capital. The other members of the consortium are cryptocurrency mining firm US Bitcoin Corp., Proof Group, Steven Kokinos and Ravi Kaza.
Check out Wolf’s first batch of Bitcoin-led startups (TC+)
In Wolf’s Clothing (Wolf), a startup accelerator launched by wealth management firm Stone Ridge, wants to strengthen Bitcoin-focused applications and use cases. Its first group, Wolfpack 1, consisted of eight teams and 23 founders from 10 countries, and they presented their ideas on Wednesday during a demo day, covered exclusively by TechCrunch+.
Montenegrin court cancels Terraform founder Do Kwon’s bail
A high court in Montenegro has overturned a lower court’s earlier decision that would have released Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon on bail. The ruling comes nearly two weeks after Montenegro’s Basic Court agreed to release detainee Kwon and his former colleague Chang-joon Han on bail.
While the web3 world has seen a significant influx of capital, innovation and talent, more work is needed to ensure that traditional players, as well as new ones, can confidently enter the ecosystem. “People look at cryptocurrencies and think of them as an investment, but there’s an entire industry that’s much more useful to the financial industries as a whole,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s EVP of cryptocurrency and blockchain, during a panel focused on blockchain at the company’s North America Innovation Day event. “The technology itself is very promising.”
Solana launches ChatGPT plugin to help users interact with its network (TC+)
As the AI market continues to heat up, a number of crypto operators, large and small, are diving in. The Solana Foundation, the nonprofit behind the Solana layer-1 blockchain, has officially integrated artificial intelligence into its network with a ChatGPT -in socket developed by Solana Labs, the team told TechCrunch+ exclusively. (Solana Labs is team building blockchain products and tools.)
The last pod
For the one from last week episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Sergei Nazarovco-founder of Chainlink, a protocol that provides an oracle network to power smart contracts.
Chainlink is also known as a web3 service platform that connects people, businesses and data with the web3 world. And for good reason: it has enabled over $7 trillion in transaction volume across DeFi, gaming, NFTs, and other major industries.
Before co-founding Chainlink, Nazarov co-founded four other companies, most recently SmartContract, which focused on smart contracts.
We discussed a variety of topics regarding smart contracts, oracle networks, cross-chain interoperability, and Nazarov’s long-term vision for Chainlink.
We also dived into:
- Unexpected smart contract use cases
- Cryptographic collateral
- How traditional companies can tokenize assets
- AI and blockchain technology
- CCIP updates
Sign up to Chain reaction ON Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to stay up to date on the latest episodes and leave us a review if you like what you hear!
Follow the money
- Launch of Dispersion Capital $40 million fund focused on decentralized infrastructures
- Decentralized scientific startup LabDAO raises $3.6 million
- Openfort raises $3 million to create ‘frictionless’ crypto accounts for players
- Institutionally focused digital asset platform PIOR raises 4 million dollars
- App automation platform Fast lane raises $2.3 million
This list was compiled with information from Messari and reporting from TechCrunch.
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