Introduction:

The protocol developed by Sam Altman and his team creates a cryptocurrency with the intention of promoting the world's largest financial and identity system.

Who is Sam Altman?

Sam Altman is the man of the moment. He is the great mind behind ChatGPT, a tool classified by none other than Bill Gates as being as important for humanity as the PC.

In addition to having been the president of Y Combinator, one of the most prestigious accelerators in Silicon Valley, Altman is an investor in disruptive companies such as Airbnb and Reddit.

What is WorldCoin?

Another initiative that has his fingerprints is WorldCoin, an open-source identity protocol powered by biometrics.

Tests of the platform have been underway for some time, but now it seems that the project is officially launching: the launch is predicted to happen this semester still, as Altman's partner in the endeavor, Alex Blania, said in February.

What's the concept behind WorldCoin?

The concept underlying WorldCoin is proof of humanity (PoH), along the same lines as proof of personhood, mechanisms that verify a person's physical existence and unique identity, whether through biometrics or other forms of digital identification.

What's more?

So far, WorldCoin's products are a token, a mobile app, and, of course, come with elements of AI in the mix.     

What's the goal of WorldCoin?

One of the technology's goals is to assist apps integrated into its network to ensure they are interacting with humans rather than robots, which are spread like viruses across the internet.

Users will be able to use the identity protocol for continuous login to decentralized sites and apps without the need to provide personal data such as names and emails.

So far, nothing too unusual, especially in the realm of Web3, were it not for the hardware required by the protocol to enable biometric capture: a retina scanner called Orb.

In 2021, the equipment gained media attention for the first time, and its team was harshly criticized and left the crypto community suspicious of Altman and company's intentions to store people's data in a centralized bank.

Users are invited to voluntary scanning in exchange for cryptocurrencies.

But Altman and Blania use a noble cause to validate their enterprise, which would not be on the agenda of any social network that benefits from users' data. The WorldCoin's ambition is to become a planetary currency with the aim of financing the distribution of universal basic income (UBI), from donations, philanthropic funds, partnerships with governments and companies, and also contributions from the community itself. Thus, it would create the "largest financial and identity system in the world."

The strange Orb equipment would, therefore, function as the great catalyst in this income distribution process.

As Blania explained in recent interviews, the captured image is transformed into a unique cryptographic hash that is stored on the WorldCoin blockchain. Biometric information, he guarantees, will not be retained.

Blania said he considers the current moment as the perfect timing for the launch since "the world may now understand that AI is not a joke." I think he is crediting this understanding to the popularity of ChatGPT...

Conclusion:

WorldCoin joins the group of companies competing to discover the Holy Grail of proof of identity on the internet, something especially desired by Web3 developers.

In the era of the multiplication of artificial intelligences, this search becomes even more relevant.

We already know that in the crypto world, it is not difficult to create multiple accounts to profit from airdrops, and now, with robots dominating the digital environment with the "automation of everything," it becomes difficult to determine who is who in the breadline.

The company now says it is focused on working to decentralize the process.

To that end, it announced the creation of the WorldCoin Foundation, a non-profit organization to lead WorldCoin towards decentralization.