Worldcoin launches token to distinguish humans from bots

July 24, 2023 Alex Rustok

Worldcoin (WLD), a project partly created by OpenAI CEO Sam Alman, launched the token that will be used within the project’s ecosystem on July 24. 

The project has continuously split opinions from within the crypto space up to Silicon Valley, with some praising the project’s ambition to some calling it “creepy” and “dystopian.” Despite these comments, the project continues to pursue its goal of solving income inequality and online identity authentication.

The project was first launched back on March 14, along with a waitlist for its software development kit (SDK). According to its team, the World ID will function as a global digital passport that users are able to store within their phones. The project also claims that the World ID will also provide proof that they are not robots, without the need to provide identifying information to various websites like phone numbers. 

On May 8, the project released its gas-free crypto wallet for verified humans. This allowed users to take advantage of gas-free transfers by registering for a World ID — where they would be asked to provide a phone number or an iris scan. 

According to the developers, the project does not store the data provided by the users. It generates a zero-knowledge proof to verify that the user is a human being, without revealing the data that was used to generate this proof.

Ahead of the launch, crypto exchange Binance announced that they will be listing the token on their platform.

Meanwhile, blockchain security firm PeckShield has detected that a fake Worldcoin token has already performed a rug pull. 

While many expressed support for the project, various community members have also opposed the idea. Former Twitter CEO and Bitcoin supporter Jack Dorsey tweeted that “at no time should a corporation or state own any part of the global financial system.”

Related: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies in ‘historic’ Senate hearing on AI safety

The project has also recorded over 2 million sign-ups to its World ID project back on July 14. During its token launch, Altman tweeted his hopes of bringing this number to 2 billion.

Sam Altman hopes to bring the number of users to 2 billion. Source: Twitter

On May 25, the project secured $115 million to support its decentralized identification system and its crypto wallet called the World App. Its team took advantage of the rise of artificial intelligence technology to pitch a “decentralized, privacy-preserving solution” that will be able to provide humanity online and allow people to take control of their identity. 

Magazine: Here’s how Ethereum’s ZK-rollups can become interoperable