Sam Altman’s innovative crypto startup, Worldcoin, which uses eyeball-scanning technology, has initiated the worldwide launch of its services.
The company aims to develop a reliable solution for differentiating humans from AI on the internet, facilitating global democratic processes, and significantly expanding economic opportunities.
The startup, which has garnered approximately $250 million in funding and includes prominent backers like Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Reid Hoffman, announced that it’s launching its identity technology and the token on a global scale.
You can now download the World App – the startup’s protocol-compatible wallet software – and visit an Orb, Worldcoin’s unique helmet-shaped eyeball-scanning verification device, to obtain their World ID.
Worldcoin, arguably one of the boldest attempts to incentivize global adoption of a cryptocurrency, aims to equip every human’s smartphone with a crypto wallet and some of their currency. The startup, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Altman and Alex Blania, still needs to devise a method to verify a person’s unique human identity in order to achieve this.
Worldcoin’s website details its primary potential uses: strengthening reward initiatives such as coupons and loyalty programs which are typically prone to fraud, battling bots by verifying identity and enabling a universally democratic governance system.
Worldcoin is reserving approximately 20% of all its tokens, which are not presently launching in the U.S. The startup has set a cap on the total supply of its “WLD” tokens at $10 billion for the first 15 years, it stated.
As per a whitepaper released by Worldcoin, the maximum circulating supply of the ERC-20-based token, at the time of its launch on Monday, stands at $143 million.
The company said in a statement:
If successful, we believe Worldcoin could drastically increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable solution for distinguishing humans for AI online while preserving private, enable global democratic processes, and eventually show a potential path to AI-funded UBI.
