OpenAI’s Sam Altman launches Worldcoin, an iris-scanning crypto project to ‘verify’ every human online

“Something like World ID will eventually exist, meaning that you will need to verify [you are human] on the internet, whether you like it or not,” WorldCoin CEO Alex Blania said.

Worldcoin, an OpenAI’s Sam Altman startup that scans people’s eyes in exchange for free cryptocurrency, officially made its debut on Monday after operating in stealth mode for about two years. The news comes two months after Worldcoin raised $115 million in a Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital.

Worldcoin was co-founded in 2021 by Sam Altman and theoretical physics student Alex Blania and Max Novendstern, a former investment associate at Bridgewater Associates. The startup said it aims to distribute a crypto token to people “just for being a unique individual.”

At the heart of the Worldcoinproject lies its main feature – the World ID, which the company refers to as a “digital passport” that serves as evidence of one’s human identity and distinguishes them from AI bots.

“Something like World ID will eventually exist, meaning that you will need to verify [you are human] on the internet, whether you like it or not,” WorldCoin CEO Alex Blania said.

To acquire a World ID, users undergo an in-person iris scan using the Worldcoin ‘orb’ – a unique silver ball, roughly the size of a bowling ball. The orb’s iris scan performs a verification process to ensure that the individual is indeed a real human, and upon successful confirmation, a World ID is generated for them.

During its beta phase, the project managed to attract an impressive user base of 2 million individuals. With its official launch on Monday, Worldcoin is now expanding its “orbing” operations to 35 cities across 20 countries. To entice new users, those who sign up in certain countries will be rewarded with Worldcoin’s cryptocurrency token, WLD.

Following the launch, WLD’s price experienced a significant surge in early trading on Monday. On the popular exchange platform, Binance, it reached a peak of $5.29, starting from an initial price of $0.15. As of 1000 GMT, it was valued at $2.49, and the total trading volume on Binance amounted to an impressive $25.1 million, as reported on the exchange’s website.

However, Worldcoin has faced criticism from privacy groups after revealing that it uses metallic orb devices to scan irises to confirm people’s identity in exchange for free crypto tokens.

In response to Altman’s tweet introducing the project in 2021, former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden tweeted, “Don’t catalogue eyeballs.” The company describes the new cryptocurrency as “a new, collectively owned global currency that will be distributed fairly to as many people as possible.”

We first covered Worldcoin back in 2021 after the controversial startup announced it planned to scan the eyes of every person on Earth in exchange for a free cryptocurrency. Worldcoin said at the time that over 100,000 users have already signed up globally and shipped its orb-shaped devices to people in 12 countries.

The company said it aims to hit the 1 billion user milestone by 2023. The Orb is a secure custom hardware device that captures the image of the user’s eyes to determine whether the user is real and whether they have claimed their free share yet.