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WorldCoin launch divides opinion – the crypto community has its say

admin by admin
July 24, 2023
in CryptoCurrency
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WorldCoin launch divides opinion – the crypto community has its say
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The launch of blockchain-based digital passport platform WorldCoin has had a polarizing effect on the cryptocurrency community, raising questions regarding its centralization, privacy and security.

WorldCoin released its protocol token on July 24, with major exchanges such as Binance announcing support for the token. Project It consists of a privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID) and its associated Ecosystem Token (WLD) that users receive when they create a wallet.

For users to join the ecosystem, they must provide a scan of their iris via one of WorldCoin’s special Orb hardware devices. WorldCoin founders Alex Blania and Sam Altman said the move provides a proof-of-personhood that is cryptographically secure and used as a World ID. wrote In a letter at the time of launch.

“This allows you to prove that you are a genuine and unique person online, while remaining completely private.”

The global digital passport is stored locally on users’ mobile devices and used to prove their identity in a privacy-focused manner. The concept aims for World ID to function as a “proof of personality” that uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs) to protect underlying data, including biometric, KYC and AML data.

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WorldCoin will also enable users to “reserve” their respective IDs with a phone number in select countries, requiring an iris scan to complete the process and receive a World ID.

Noting the potential of biometric proof of personality, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was among several industry figures to comment on the launch of WorldCoin.

In a lengthy blog post published by Cointelegraph, Buterin detailed the technicalities of the Proof of Personality blockchain protocol and the potential advantages and disadvantages of projects that are forging a use-case path.

Buterin highlighted a key reason for proof of personality protocols to be able to prove human identity and be used to deliver universal basic income in the future.

“WorldCoin is unique in that it relies on highly sophisticated biometrics, scanning the iris of each user using a piece of specialized hardware called “The Orb.”

As Buterin explains, Worldcoin orbs are set to be distributed around the world to allow users to create their own respective digital IDs. He also highlighted some ethical concerns surrounding the privacy and security concerns surrounding the Orb, design issues regarding its native token, and how biometrics is “absolutely a good ideal”.

“Risks include the inevitable privacy leaks, further erosion of people’s ability to navigate the Internet anonymously, coercion by authoritarian governments, and the potential impossibility of being decentralized as well as secure.”

Twitter co-founder and bitcoin proponent Jack Dorsey had a word to describe Blania and Altman’s “efforts at global alignment” that WorldCoin aims to provide:

Bitcoin advocate Anita Pausch also suggested that the centralized nature of the WorldCoin project and the amount of data it is handling could be a potential point of failure:

Ethhub co-founder Anthony Sassano provided food for thought, suggesting that bankrupt FTX and Three Arrows Capital (3AC) could return all creditors with appreciation for their early-stage investments in the WorldCoin project:

Yoni Assia, founder of eToro, pointed out that WorldCoin is emulating its own GoodDollar digital universal basic income platform:

According to the WorldCoin white paper DocumentationThe protocol was originally deployed on Polygon in its beta phase, while the current version runs on the Ethereum mainnet using a scalable batching architecture via Layer 2 Protocol Optimism. The project has over two million users enrolled.

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