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Debut, aiming to achieve "universal basic income"
This project called "Worldcoin" was first made public to the public in June 2021, and announced the completion of a $25 million financing. It has won the support of a16z, Coinbase Ventures, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Day One Ventures and many other well-known investors. .
reported that, Worldcoin plans to issue a global digital currency that scans the iris through a basketball-like silver device (Orb) developed by it to form a unique personal identification code to determine personal identity. According to reports, iris scanning can prevent users from re-registering, but in order to ensure privacy, Worldcoin will try to make data usage transparent, and the relevant images will be permanently deleted after scanning.
At that time, Worldcoin had begun to test the device on a small scale in several cities. Because it had not yet been officially released, Worldcoin paid volunteers with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin in exchange for some feedback on usage. It is said that there are fewer than 20 prototypes of the device, and the current cost is US$5,000, but as the process is improved, the cost will drop significantly.
In an interview, Altman said he came up with the idea in late 2019, inspired by the popular economic theory of universal basic income (UBI), which would use cryptocurrencies to distribute funds fairly.Altman was the first investor in Worldcoin, but he said he does not participate in the day-to-day operations of the company, mainly acting as an advisor to the company when needed.
The actual head of the project is Alexander Blania, who co-founded Worldcoin with Altman and Max Novendstern. Altman and Max Novendstern previously worked at Ray Dalio's investment arm Bridgewater Associates LP and money transfer startup Wave. Blania said the company is evaluating how it can one day allow as many people as possible to use cryptocurrencies: "There are still a lot of people in the world who are not yet in the financial system, and cryptocurrencies have the opportunity to allow us to do that."
In October of that year, Worldcoinsaysecondary title
The ideal is full and the reality is skinny, and the follow-up development is difficult
However, the subsequent development of the project was not smooth. In March 2022, WorldcoinpauseIt has canceled plans to operate in multiple countries and has repeatedly pushed back its target release date.
At the time, the company had collected images of the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people in about 20 countries, but the process had been plagued by uneven smartphone usage, user confusion and fraud attempts.
Still, Worldcoin is trying to raise more money to advance its plans.It is reported that, the company was raising $100 million in token funding at a $3 billion valuation.
In August of the same year, Worldcoin co-founder and CEO Max Novendsternresign, and founded the start-up company Mana, which aims to establish an AI venture capital protocol that operates autonomously on the chain.
Since then, Worldcoin has remained silent—whether it is the progress of the project development or the financing process.
When it was almost forgotten, Worldcoin came out again this year. early FebruaryIt is reported thatsecondary title
Set sail again and take root in the protocol layer
A month after the news of the financing was disclosed,Worldcoin announced the latest progress of the project, including the World ID protocol and software development kit (SDK).
Described as Worldcoin's "underlying identity protocol," powered by zero-knowledge cryptography, World ID is a mobile tool people can use to prove their identity without sacrificing anonymity. The iris-scanning hardware Orb is the main way users get verified, though they can also use tools like phone number verification, which are less accurate.
“It’s a decentralized and privacy-first protocol,” Tiago Sada, director of product, engineering, and design at Tools For Humanity, a major software contributor to Worldcoin, said in an interview. With it, people can have a self-custodial ID, everything is on the device, and it authenticates itself through zero-knowledge proofs."
Users can obtain a World ID on any compatible mobile wallet. One option is the World App, which is currently still in beta.
Orb validation is currently largely limited to Argentina, Chile, India, Kenya, Portugal, and Spain, with a wider rollout of the device coming later this year. Meanwhile, mobile verification is available in most countries.
The simplest use case for World ID is login (aka authentication).Other potential use cases for the technology include bot protection and moderation in social networks, voting in DAOs, support for unsecured loans, loyalty programs and coupons, market reviews, and distribution of benefits. The first rollout of the technology will focus on verification on Discord.
"It probably takes more people's imagination to think about what you can do with it. When the iPhone came out, you didn't even think about Uber," Sada added. "It's a basic primitive. It's here to stay. And Worldcoin is all about making sure it exists in a decentralized and privacy-preserving way.”
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marching through controversy
When it comes to user identity, privacy is bound to be the number one concern.Orb's release in June 2021 drew a backlash from leading privacy advocates, including Edward Snowden, who warned people not to use biometric data for anything, adding that the human body is not "a ticket to vote". machine".
Worldcoin later attempted to allay these concerns by using zero-knowledge proof technology to remove the link between the biometric registration stage and the wallet. However, Sada believes that concerns about the project remain.
“There’s still a lot of misunderstanding,” he says, “and a lot of people don’t know that your biometric data is destroyed in the Orb.” That is, unless users choose to store their own biometric data — though that would help improve the protocol , but Worldcoin does not encourage users to do so.
"The iris code is the only thing that leaves the device," Sada continued, "and while it might sound suspicious, World ID is really the most private identity. I think it's also in many ways the most inclusive and scalable of."
Sada also said that if there are better tools to prove a person's uniqueness, considering the constraints of manufacturing hardware, Worldcoin will give up Orb without saying a word. In fact, Tools for Humanity has a team actively looking for such a solution.
But for now, Orb development continues. Worldcoin is ramping up Orb distribution through an operator program that offers rewards. According to the official announcement today, Worldcoin currently has 1.3 million registered users.
However, Sam Altman, as the biggest "halo" of Worldcoin, has not made any statement yet. As previously mentioned, Altman has stated that he does not participate in the day-to-day operations of the company, mainly serving as an advisor to the company when needed. But his existence still makes people have expectations:Once Worldcoin and AI are combined, new sparks are bound to emerge.
With the announcement of the major progress of this project, we might as well wait and see whether Worldcoin can successfully complete the financing and even be officially released—the current encryption industry urgently needs such good news.
