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Artificial intelligence advances at a breakneck speed, bringing numerous benefits that reduce the human workload, saving time and money. At the same time, it comes with its fair share of risks and threats, like fraud and deepfakes. These perils implanted the seed of the concept we’re discussing now, namely Worldcoin. The ex-start-up emerged as ambitious because of the desire to reduce or eliminate modern-day threats promoted by the already hyped-up web3.

The project has attracted significant attention since the launch of Worldcoin, which is represented by the WLD symbol on cryptocurrency exchanges. So, what exactly is Worldcoin?

The Beginning of Worldcoin

Worldcoin, the project intending to raise the current barriers between artificial intelligence (AI) and digital currency, has garnered massive interest in 2024. Having started as a concept in 2021, when the organization behind Worldcoin made public the Orb technology, it quickly caught the attention of tech- and future-oriented investors with its promise to fuse the two realms. This target catalyzes the confidence that led to high-powered individual or institutional investors pouring money into the fundraising activity. A $25MN fundraising backed by bigwigs like Andreessen Horowitz firm managed to push the startup to a valuation of $1BN.

Fast forward to March 2022, the venture was receiving another $100MN from heavyweights. And two months later, Worldcoin exited the beta phase and released its self-custodial mobile application in more than 80 nations. During its testing phase, the platform successfully recorded over 60,000 transactions and 1.5 million users in just one day.

The growing demand led to a surge in traffic, eventually causing the chain to be temporarily shut down due to exceeding its capacity. To tackle the issues surrounding on-chain performance, the project later announced plans to launch a new grants program to support developers, an initiative designed to encourage innovation and improve the overall infrastructure. Despite its phenomenal success, the company didn’t expose the World ID protocol plan – a feature permitting individuals’ identity confirmation without personal data revelation – until March 2023.

One could obtain a Worldcoin digital identity after having their iris scanned. The procedure prevents the identification of the person and is only used to prove their uniqueness. The initiative has polarized points of view, though it received backing from numerous industry leaders, like Vitalik Buterin. If you want to learn more about the project’s eyeball-scanning procedure, you can access the YouTube video uploaded by the firm’s channel in July of this year.

Taking “Personhood” to a New Level

AI brings a lot of risks and challenges, reason for which co-founders Altman, Max Novendstern, and Alex Blania laid the groundwork for Worldcoin. This is a ground-breaking cryptocurrency initiative and online platform that blends AI, digital currency, and blockchain in an open-source protocol designed to give everyone access to a global economy.

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Like other cryptos, Worldcoin is decentralized, meaning that it’s not controlled by any bank, broker, or governmental agency – like traditional money is. After two years in progress, Worldcoin aims to confront income inequality with its inimitable World ID system, which serves as proof of personhood, ensuring that users are real humans and not bots or AI.

The Worldcoin project revolves around the following three components:

  • A one-of-a-kind digital identity for global use
  • A global cryptocurrency through WLD tokens
  • An app for purchases, transactions, and payments, whether using traditional or digital money.

How Worldcoin Operates

Worldcoin is inimitable in that it aims to create an entirely global economy that anyone can access regardless of their financial status or income. What differentiates it from heavyweight Bitcoin and Ethereum is that it presents a token for the long term that doesn’t necessitate upfront investments. Instead, interested parties can break into the system by allowing their mobile devices to scan their eyeballs. As per the company’s words, this ensures access only to humans and guarantees that no individual can register multiple times.

AI’s expansion brings a unique challenge—proving that someone is a real person. Irises are unique to each individual in a similar way that fingertips are. The Orb uses this structure to build a unique code that verifies someone’s identity, not their personal data. This component works as the individual’s special identifier and is locked onto the underlying blockchain to prevent duplication. The scans are anonymized to ensure that they can’t be linked back to the person after the identifier’s release.

Better Iris Scan Security

Orb centers exist in 35 countries, located in major cities across Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and North America. On May 15, 2024, the venture introduced a fresh secure multi-party computation (SMPC) system, further improving the security and privacy of iris scans and other biometric elements. Under this new protocol, iris codes are encrypted and distributed across multiple parties for storage, setting up a decentralized identity. The data remains encrypted, and no one party can decrypt it alone—every part is necessary for access. This system is designed to be resistant to quantum computing attacks, which could otherwise compromise biometric data.

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Worldcoin has assured users that old iris codes will be deleted once the new system is entirely in place. The SMPC system is open source and available on GitHub for other organizations to use as a data protection standard.

The Steps to Complete the Process

There are three steps to completing the Worldcoin process, starting with downloading the app in question. This enables individuals to set up accounts and receive their crypto wallet—a program that works for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptos, too. It also works with social media apps like Instagram and X.

Users need the World ID to access the app, which can be obtained after the Worldcoin Operator Center scans the eyeball and checks the identity. After this, users can claim their free WLD tokens and access Ethereum and Bitcoin airdrops via their personal identifier in the app.

Endnote

Worldcoin lays the groundwork for a new market for crypto products, seeking to solve the authentication issues that abound the Web3 space, where users’ data and assets are often vulnerable. With these plans in mind, Worldcoin also intends to lend the iris-scanning technology to other organizations in an attempt to combat fraud and scams globally.

By Bradford

Bradford is an entertainment afficionado, interested in all the latest goings on in the celebrity and tech world. He has been writing for years about celebrity net worth and more!