Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Cryptocurrency Project is Now Live

After three years of development, enduring various disruptions in the digital-asset market and investing substantial amounts of money, the Worldcoin project, which utilizes eyeball-scanning technology, has finally been introduced.

“Worldcoin is an attempt at harmonization on a global scale,” the digital identity and crypto-payments project founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement on Monday. “The journey will be challenging and the outcome is uncertain.”

Both the digital asset market and the wider Technology industry have experienced drastic changes in the years since the project was founded. Since June 2021, when Bloomberg first reported on Altman’s new startup, Bitcoin’s price has been on a rollercoaster ride from around $32,000 to over $67,000 and back to below $30,000.

Some of the startup’s original backers have been caught up in the vicissitudes of the crypto market, including collapsed hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of bankrupt exchange FTX. And artificial intelligence has usurped crypto as the latest technology trend – with Altman himself emerging as one of the most influential figures in AI.

Worldcoin, like Altman, extends into the worlds of artificial intelligence and crypto. The project uses a small device called a “ball” to scan people’s eyeballs to create a unique digital identity. This identity, or World ID, gives its holder a “proof of identity” in Worldcoin parlance. Altman and his co-founders say a new approach to digital authentication is necessary at a time when artificial intelligence is making it harder than ever to determine what is created by humans and what is not.

In addition to launching a blockchain called OP Mainnet, the project also announced the initial distribution of the Worldcoin crypto-token to those who have already received a World ID, and plans to expand eyeball scan sign-ups to more countries.

The process has not always been smooth. When it signed people up, the project was criticized for allegedly relying on fraudulent and exploitative practices in countries like Indonesia, Ghana and Chile. And despite the buzz around AI, many in the industry wonder if the industry has fallen into a cycle of hype – for example, one academic paper recently found that ChatGPT’s performance has degraded over time.

Altman said in an interview with Bloomberg News that AI enthusiasm has helped fuel more enthusiasm for Worldcoin. “There’s a lot more interest, understanding and excitement, especially as AI has become more of a factor in the world than when we started the project,” he said.

The current global crypto regulatory environment, marked by crackdowns and lawsuits, creates confusion for the project. Worldcoin’s token is currently not available in the United States, where tensions over crypto regulation have intensified in recent months. Altman and his co-founder Alex Blania released a letter Monday saying the rules were less clear in the United States.

“There’s clearly a lot of uncertainty, to put it mildly,” Altman told Bloomberg. “I think it’s a shame.”

Altman said he hopes the U.S. gets to a “rational place” when it comes to crypto regulation. He previously testified before the Senate in May, urging Congress to regulate AI.

Blania, who is also the CEO of Tools for Humanity, a startup developing Worldcoin applications, said he is excited to expand the use of Worldcoin in Asia, especially Japan and South Korea. According to its website, Worldcoin has over 2 million registrations. Blania also stated that the project has improved its security after two recent issues: the theft of login credentials from some Worldcoin operators who were responsible for registering new users, and the black market sale of World-IDs.

Blania said the impact of these incidents was minimal, and in addition to implementing two-factor authentication, there is now a security feature that can detect when a login is geographically very far from where the user logged into the account. “Of course there will be fraud,” Blania said. “It’s not a perfect system, especially early on.”

Blania suggested that Worldcoin should not be considered a crypto project, a move that echoes the branding strategy recently implemented by several other players in the digital asset industry.

“Crypto is hopefully a label that will be dropped in the coming years anyway, and it’s essentially a technology that you use to build certain products,” Blania said.

Both Blania and Altman emphasized that decentralization, a central tenet of crypto, is an important part of their mission. Altman said he’s not worried about giving the impression that he has too much control over the digital token market.

“In the crypto world, I’m either unknown or close to it, and if so, not very well-liked,” Altman said. He added: “If I were to start a new AI, people might say something about undue influence.”