A company co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has raised $115 million for Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project that scans users’ eyeballs to “create an individual’s unique personality.” In addition to his leadership of the ChatGPT and GPT-4 industry, Altman is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors tools for humanitya company that builds technology for worldcoin project.
Tools for Humanity today announced $115 million in Series C funding from Blockchain Capital, Andreessen Horowitz Crypto Fund, Bain Capital Crypto, and Distributed Global. Blockchain Capital said Worldcoin’s “World ID” system that includes eyeball scanning would make it easier for apps to distinguish between bots and humans.
worldcoin
“Worldcoin is striving to become the largest global financial and inclusive network, built on the foundation of World ID and the Worldcoin token – a public good that will be owned by everyone regardless of their background or economic status,” said the cryptocurrency company’s funded press release. .
Worldcoin offers a Universal app for iOS and Android, which “allows anyone to set up their own Worldcoin account and access a digital wallet connected to Worldcoin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital and fiat currencies including stablecoins,” the company says.
The eyeball scan part plays anyone who signs up for a universal ID card. This requires going to a physical location and using your eyes and a device called an “orb” to verify that you are a real person.
“Orb uses iris biometrics to create a unique personality for an individual, and then digitally generates a global identifier that can be pseudonymously used in a variety of everyday applications without revealing the user’s identity,” says Worldcoin.
Limited orb availability
The company says the same global app can be used without signing up for a global identification number. But Worldcoin says that people who get the Global ID will also get some free Worldcoin tokens and an amount of free bitcoins and ether.
Worldcoin is still in beta, and the tokens are not intended to be available to people in the United States or other restricted territories, Project FAQ He says. A US resident can get a global ID, but the global app tells users that there are no orbs in the US yet.
“We’re working hard to bring orbs to every country in the world,” the app says if you’re based in one of those unfortunate countries that don’t have an Orb.
Although Worldcoin says its tokens are not meant to be available to people in the US, the Orb devices will be offered in a few US cities in the coming months. company announce An orb tour where “Worldcoin Orbs will be available for a limited time” from May through July in Berlin, Dubai, London, Mexico City, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seoul and Tokyo.
Investor: Worldcoin is not a ‘miserable nightmare’
In a press release, Tools for Humanity said the new funding “will accelerate TFH’s ongoing research and development and growth, enabling it to support the expansion and further development of the Worldcoin project. world application, the first wallet of the Worldcoin ecosystem. “
Spencer Bogart, general partner at Blockchain Capital, has defended Worldcoin against the privacy and security criticisms the iris scanning project has received. “I thought Worldcoin was a miserable Orwellian nightmare, then our team invested hundreds of hours evaluating what the project contributors actually built and I totally changed my mind,” Bogart wrote on Twitter.
Bogart claimed that “Worldcoin is probably the single most misunderstood project in all of cryptocurrency,” noting that “at first glance, it appears to be a perverse mix of hardware, biometrics, cryptocurrency, and AI.”
But “actually,” according to Bogart, “Worldcoin World ID is the most compelling solution we’ve seen” to a decades-old problem. “In short, Worldcoin has a unique opportunity to create and extend a new privacy-preserving primitive for the Internet (Global Identifier) that enables any application to easily distinguish between machines (bots) and humans.”
Blockchain Capital said on its site website that “World ID enables individuals to verify their humanity online while maintaining anonymity through zero-knowledge evidence. Verification is as simple as clicking a button to sign a transaction.”
