Worldcoin, the innovative cryptocurrency project led by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is making significant strides towards securing fresh investment worth over $100 million. Despite being in beta, Worldcoin has captured the attention of investors, including venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Khosla Ventures.
The Financial Times revealed that Worldcoin is currently engaged in advanced discussions for a new funding round, which is expected to attract both existing and new investors. This round would further solidify Worldcoin’s position as a major player in the crypto industry. Previously, a16z and Khosla Ventures participated in Worldcoin’s funding, resulting in a valuation of $3 billion. In addition, the project successfully closed a $25 million Series A funding round, led by a16z in October 2021, with support from prominent investors such as Digital Currency Group, Coinbase Ventures, and Multicoin.
Worldcoin is on track to transition from its beta phase to an official launch within the next six weeks. The project, co-founded by Sam Altman, intends to establish a global digital currency that promotes fairness and accessibility for all individuals worldwide.
By leveraging a proof-of-personhood protocol, Worldcoin ensures a transparent and equitable distribution of its tokens. The process involves conducting a biometric iris scan of recipients, which is cross-referenced with a government-issued identification document for identity verification. Once an individual’s identity is confirmed, they become eligible to receive a predetermined number of Worldcoin tokens.
Recently, Worldcoin announced its strategic partnership with Optimism Collective, resulting in the migration of its World App wallet and World ID—a privacy-centric decentralized identity protocol—from Polygon to Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solution, Optimism. This collaboration aims to expand accessibility and foster a values-aligned ecosystem of developers and users. The Worldcoin Foundation expressed excitement about the move, highlighting the over 1.6 million sign-ups in beta and more than 500,000 monthly active users of the World App.
While the project continues to gain momentum, it has also encountered criticism from Edward Snowden, the renowned whistleblower and former NSA contractor. Snowden expressed concerns about the ethical implications of using individuals’ biometric data for a cryptocurrency initiative. He questioned Worldcoin’s objective of creating a global database of iris scans stored in the form of hashes.
What is Worldcoin?
Worldcoin is building the world’s largest identity and financial network as a public utility, giving ownership to everyone. Worldcoin aims to create universal access to the global economy regardless of country or background, accelerating the transition to an economic future that welcomes and benefits every person on the planet.
Worldcoin is an open-source protocol, supported by a global community of developers, individuals, economists and technologists committed to expanding participation in, and access to, the global economy. The Worldcoin Foundation is the steward, and will support and grow the Worldcoin community until it becomes self-sufficient. Tools for Humanity helped launch Worldcoin, and currently serve as advisors to the Foundation and operators of the World App. Currently in beta, Worldcoin expects to launch in the first half of 2023.
For more information about Worldcoin, visit their official website and follow them on Twitter.
