The Worldcoin project, a crypto initiative backed by OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman, officially began its global rollout on Monday.
“Over the last six months of its beta phase, the Worldcoin project has verified the uniqueness and humanness of more than 40,000 individuals per week. The availability of 1.5K Orbs will more than 5x sign-up capacity globally and enable millions of additional people to join the 2 million who have already signed up for World ID,” Worldcoin noted in a blog post.
With a mission to create an inclusive global identity and financial network, Worldcoin seeks to enhance economic opportunities, facilitate global democratic processes, and pave the way to AI-funded universal basic income.
The project's initial rollout focuses on the deployment of its innovative identity technology, World ID, and its digital currency, WLD. It has raised about $250 million so far, with its tokes unavailable in the U.S. for now.
Worldcoin is scaling to 1.5K available Orbs this summer & fall in more than 35 cities around the world.https://t.co/ZTqdjpF87x
— Worldcoin (@worldcoin) July 24, 2023
Worldcoin's foundation lies in the principle of "proof of personhood," a concept that distinguishes a unique human individual without revealing their real-world identity. Worldcoin's World ID aspires to become a global standard in providing a scalable and inclusive proof of personhood solution.
Enabled by a unique biometric device named the Orb, World ID allows users to verify their human uniqueness while preserving their privacy using zero-knowledge proofs.
The protocol of World ID permits individuals to demonstrate their humanness to any verifier, thus enhancing security and fairness across various platforms.
In addition, Worldcoin's token WLD is designed to align network participants' incentives with the network's growth, aiming to become one of the most widely distributed digital assets.
The World App, serving as the first frontend to World ID, allows individuals to interact smoothly with the Worldcoin protocol. Users can visit physical Orb devices to verify their World ID and engage with the Worldcoin ecosystem.
The potential applications of Worldcoin are broad and transformative, according to the company behind the project, Tools for Humanity. In the finance sector, it could enable instant, borderless money transfers, making digital money universally accessible and safer than cash.
In terms of digital identity, it could help filter out bots and spam, leading to cleaner digital spaces. The intersection of finance and identity could also incentivize businesses to align better with their consumers, fostering a new era of user-participatory companies.
“Worldcoin is an attempt at global scale alignment, the journey will be challenging and the outcome is uncertain. However, finding new ways to broadly share the coming technological prosperity is a critical challenge of our time. We hope you’ll join us,” co-founders OpenAI’s Altman and Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania noted in a separate press release.
