Sam Altman’s Worldcoin crypto project begins international rollout

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Sam Altman’s cryptocurrency project, the Worldcoin Foundation, is rolling out its services globally even as the company co-founded by the OpenAI chief faces regulatory pushback in the US.

The Berlin and San Francisco-based start-up announced on Monday that its technology, including its Worldcoin token — a cryptocurrency traceable on the blockchain that requires users to first prove their identity — will be available in 35 cities across 20 countries.

Central to the effort is an eye-scanning physical “orb”, which Worldcoin’s founders say is necessary for a future in which distinguishing between humans and robots becomes increasingly challenging due to a surge in artificial intelligence technology. Once users have proved they are not robots, they can be issued one of the company’s tokens.

But the company’s goals face being stymied by US regulators cracking down on digital assets based on fears over cryptocurrencies being used as a vehicle for speculation and fraud. For this reason, Worldcoin tokens will not initially be available in the US.

“When we started thinking about this, we didn’t think it would end up as ‘world minus the US coin’ and here we are,” Altman told the Financial Times. “I’d say there’s 95 per cent of the world’s population not in the US. The US does not make or break a project like this.”

While Worldcoin’s rollout comes as AI takes major strides forward — such as OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT last year — it also coincides with an unprecedented period of tumult for digital tokens and the broader crypto sector.

A crisis of confidence enveloped the industry last year, prompting the collapse of bellwethers including FTX and Celsius and leading regulators to issue a blitz of enforcement actions aimed at cracking down on speculative crypto projects.

Despite the regulatory hurdles, investors poured roughly $250mn into Worldcoin, including venture capital groups Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and, prior to the collapse of his FTX empire, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Alex Blania, Worldcoin’s co-founder, said the company was limited in what it could say about its commercial ambitions because of regulatory scrutiny in the US.

But the project “will make money”, according to Tiago Sada, head of product at the company. “All our products are for-profit. There will eventually be a bunch of different wallets and experiences which will make money.”

Worldcoin has also outlined plans to hold on to about 20 per cent of all tokens it issues, using their value to fund “Orb production and initial protocol development . . . ecosystem development and maintenance”.

Altman admitted that eye-scanning technology has “a clear ick factor”, but he is confident that with proper explanation the company can attract users.

“On crypto, there have been a lot of bad actors and that’s a real shame . . . we have to earn people’s trust, which is why we’re explaining so much about how the technology works and the road map for decentralising the company,” he said.