With more than 2 million users and a valuation of 22 billion, why does Worldcoin attract attention and gold？ ｜ dynamic inspection

　　Up to now, 37 trading platforms, including Coinup, Youyi, Bi 'an and Huobi, have opened the exchange of WLD for USDT, BTC and other cryptocurrencies.

　　Wen | Dongdian Technology

　　Compile | Zheng Huimin

　　Typesetting | Shen Rui

　　This article is expected to read for 9 minutes.

　　When the cryptocurrency market is slowly recovering from the last catastrophe, the limelight of Web3 has also been robbed by generative AI, and a cryptocurrency that was born suddenly attracted the attention of the whole world.

　　On July 24th, a cryptocurrency project named Worldcoin was officially launched and promoted online all over the world. This project includes digital identity World ID and digital token WLD.

　　According to official website data, less than two weeks after its launch, the total number of registered World ID users has exceeded 2.18 million. According to the data of the trading platform, as of August 4, the price of WLD fluctuated around $2.28. The total supply limit of WLD is 10 billion pieces, and the latest value of this project has reached $22.8 billion based on fully diluted valuation (FDV).

　　Hot projects endorsed by star capital and rushed by exchanges.

　　It all starts with the man behind ChatGPT.

　　In 2019, Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, founded Worldcoin. In January 2020, Alex Blania joined and became CEO. The latter previously worked in the fields of physics and theoretical physics, focusing on the use of deep learning to predict AI systems.

　　According to the report of McKinsey Global Institute, there are currently more than 4.4 billion people in the world who cannot legally verify their identity or can't verify their identity digitally. WorldCoin's vision is to create the world's largest and fair digital identity and digital currency system, a global, fair and inclusive open source financial agreement.

　　Perhaps thanks to Sam Altman's fame, Worldcoin's financing road is smooth.

　　In October, 2021, Worldcoin received a series A financing of US$ 25 million from a16z, DCG, Coinbase Ventures and other star capitals, with a valuation of US$ 1 billion. This recognition is unusual for a young company.

　　A16z is a venture capital giant established in 2009, which is famous for its soaring valuation of portfolio companies. In 2013, a16z began to extend its investment reach to cryptocurrency and blockchain. By the end of May this year, a16z managed encryption funds with a total scale of more than $7.6 billion. Among them, a16z's fourth encryption fund raised 4.5 billion US dollars, which also made a16z the largest encryption vc to date.

　　At the beginning of 2022, the sales volume of Worldcoin token WLD reached 100 million US dollars. At that time, Worldcoin received a series B financing from a16z and other institutions, with a valuation as high as $3 billion.

　　In May this year, Worldcoin completed a $115 million Series C financing, which was led by Blockchain Capital, and a16z, Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global participated in the investment for three times. The financing funds are used to accelerate the research and development and growth of Worldcoin project and World App.

　　Two months later, the Worldcoin white paper was officially released, and the encrypted wallet World App was also opened for use. Subsequently, okx, Coin 'an and other exchanges launched WLD one after another, which has not been seen in the currency circle for a long time. On the first day of launch, WLD continued to rise. CoinMarketCap data shows that as of 12 o'clock on July 24, WLD increased by 88.4% and the transaction price was as high as $3.14. Such a rise made WLD's fully diluted valuation once reach an astonishing $28.84 billion.

　　Up to now, 37 trading platforms, including Coinup, Youyi, Bi 'an and Huobi, have opened the exchange of WLD for USDT, BTC and other cryptocurrencies.

　　Bonus hunter artifact that shares AI profits with 1 billion people around the world.

　　In a podcast, Sam Altman confessed that the original intention of founding Worldcoin originated from his thinking about the global network. "The network is not only a financial network, but also an identity network." He believes that it will be of great significance if we can redistribute wealth through some kind of UBI(Universal Basic Income), even provide access to these systems, and verify the unique humanity while protecting privacy.

　　This idea comes from his work in OpenAI and his research on UBI. The basic income of the whole people refers to the regular and unconditional cash subsidy provided by the government to all citizens or residents to help people meet their basic needs. In theory, it has the advantages of reducing poverty, encouraging innovation, simplifying the welfare system and making up for the unemployment caused by AI and other technologies, but there are still many problems and disputes to be solved in practice.

　　However, Sam Altman obviously agrees with this model and regards web3 and cryptocurrency as its important implementation path. In March, 2021, Sam Altman publicly voiced his voice in the field of encryption, appreciated the "pass card" mechanism, and believed that "pass card" could be used as UBI to provide fair financial infrastructure for low-income people.

　　Specific to Worldcoin, the way to realize UBI is simply and rudely airdropping WLD tokens. Worldcoin officials clearly stated that ICO would not be carried out, and the main channels for receiving tokens were secondary market and airdrop. Registering WorldID is the most important way to receive airdrops. You can receive 25 WLDs for free on the same day, and then receive one for free every week. In addition, WLD tokens can be obtained by contributing codes and donations to the community.

　　As of August 4th, 25 WLDs were worth about $60. According to the data of official website, as of 4pm on August 4th, the total number of registered WorldID users exceeded 2.18 million (the number of registered users increased in real time). If the airdrop rules remain unchanged, it means that Worldcoin has already released WLD tokens worth $124 million.

　　This figure is far from Sam Altman's original idea. In order to rapidly expand its financial network, WorldCoin plans to airdrop its Token to 1 billion people around the world, and hopes to cover about 3 billion people around the world in the future.

　　The dream of "distributing the wealth generated by AI equally to everyone in the world through cryptocurrency" is not grand. For users, no one doesn't want to have an extra pension. However, the UBI of the cryptocurrency path also has operability problems in the process of shining into reality-if everyone can continuously obtain cryptocurrency for free, it will probably lead to inflation and the depreciation of WLD.

　　In addition, the issuance of money itself will not increase wealth, and the circulation of money can continue to increase wealth. At present, Worldcoin airdrop tokens have not been fully released, and the market liquidity is still insufficient. According to the data of the third-party trading platform, as of August 4, the circulation of WLD was 104.4 million, with a circulation rate of 1.04%.

　　Unique digital identity in the world

　　Alex Blania, co-founder of Worldcoin, has publicly stated that with the advent of the AI era, we must maintain personal privacy and prove our human attributes at the same time to ensure that everyone can obtain the wealth created by AI. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to prevent witch attacks first, that is, a single person can get more airdrops by controlling multiple IDs. Worldcoin's solution is to use human biological characteristics (mapped to our unique DNA) to generate unique and verifiable personality characteristics.

　　Orb, a biometric device developed by Worldcoin, can verify a person's uniqueness by scanning the iris, and at the same time, use zero-knowledge proof (a probability-based verification method) to ensure security. Orb is an open source design with two lenses, wide-angle and telephoto, which works in cooperation with neural network to capture high-definition images of pupils and convert biometric images into an unbreakable hash code composed of letters and numbers. By comparing the data in the database, if it is a new registered user, a new WorldID will be added and saved in the Worldcoin database, and an encrypted wallet with a QR code will be generated, through which users can get free Worldcoin tokens.

　　Official website shows that at present, Worldcoin has made 2,000 ORBs. Due to compliance restrictions, the hardware device is currently only used in some areas. Worldcoin promises to speed up registration by deploying Orb in more than 35 cities in 20 countries around the world. The trial areas in Asia include Bangalore, Delhi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Manila, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo. The local Orb operator is responsible for promoting the world currency to the public and organizing Orb scanning activities. By promoting Orb, operators can also get corresponding WLD rewards. Token economics shows that about 7.7 billion WLDs will be distributed to users and operators by airdrop to encourage early participants.

　　There are some questions about the application of iris scanning technology, including the cost of equipment deployment and maintenance, data processing and storage, and concerns about privacy.

　　In this regard, Worldcoin said that Orb will not store or upload the original iris image, but users can't detect the structure of Orb and whether there is a back door for the platform to operate on their own, so they can't ensure that their data will not be leaked or abused.

　　In fact, French data and privacy regulators began to question the legality and conditions of Worldcoin's collection and storage of biometric data, and Britain and Germany began to investigate it, while Kenya directly banned the registration of world currency.

　　summarize

　　Compared with its beautiful vision, Worldcoin still lacks a complete and detailed road map for promoting the globalization of inclusive finance, and its feasibility needs time to verify. The related risks in the implementation process also need to fully cooperate with the regulatory authorities in various regions to ensure the compliance of Orb and World ID in different countries.

　　In addition, WLD debuted at its peak, and the initial fully diluted valuation of nearly $29 billion was worrying. In fact, since its launch, the latest price of WLD has not exceeded $2.4 on the first day, and it has been in a slight correction trend, while the current market value is still in the order of $20 billion. Now is not the best time to take over the secondary market.

　　This article is an original article for the reporter of Moving Point Science and Technology. It can't be reproduced without authorization. If you need to reprint or open a blank, please reply "reprint" in the background.

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