Worldcoin launched in 2023, co-founded by Sam Altman (the CEO of OpenAI), Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern. The pitch was grand: create a global identity and financial network by scanning people’s irises with a custom hardware device called the Orb, issuing each verified human a World ID and free WLD tokens. The goal was to solve the “proof of personhood” problem — proving you’re a unique human and not a bot — which Altman argued would become critical as AI made fake identities trivial to create.
The Orb was the centerpiece and the controversy. Worldcoin deployed thousands of Orbs across the globe, primarily in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Users lined up to get their irises scanned in exchange for free tokens worth $20-50. Critics accused the project of exploiting economic desperation — people in poor countries scanning their biometrics for pocket money while a Silicon Valley company built a global identity database.
The WLD token launched on major exchanges in July 2023 and saw volatile trading. Despite the controversy, Worldcoin grew its user base to over 10 million verified World IDs by late 2024. The project rebranded to “World” in late 2024 and launched World Chain, its own Ethereum L2 for identity-verified applications. Multiple countries investigated or temporarily banned Worldcoin operations over privacy concerns, including Kenya, Spain, and Portugal.
Worldcoin represents the highest-profile intersection of AI and crypto. Altman’s simultaneous roles leading both OpenAI and Worldcoin created a unique dynamic: the same person building the AI that makes fake identities easy was also building the crypto project that claimed to solve that problem. Whether Worldcoin’s approach — centralized iris scanning for decentralized identity — is the right solution is deeply contested. But the problem it’s trying to solve is real, and it’s getting more urgent as AI capabilities advance.
Leave a Reply