Worldcoin Close to Securing $100M Funding

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reported to be in advanced talks to raise $100 million for his crypto venture Worldcoin.

Founded in 2019, Worldcoin has been developing a range of crypto products in recent years. But as things stand, the company has been dramatically outshone by its founder’s other project — OpenAI.

Worldcoin Launches Crypto Wallet

Sunday’s revelation comes off the back of a major Worldcoin product release earlier this week. 

Launched on Monday, World App the crypto wallet of the Worldcoin ecosystem. It can be used to authenticate identity with World ID. And it can be used to send and receive Worldcoin as well as other digital assets.

World ID is a digital passport that allows users to prove their identity as a unique person without sacrificing their anonymity by divulging too much personal information.

Toward Biometric Crypto Verification

The ultimate goal of the Worldcoin project is to bring the kind of biometric verification standards that are common with banking apps, for example, to the world of crypto. To date, crypto wallets have lagged behind their counterparts when it comes to implementing biometric verification

In other words, Tools for Humanity, the company behind the project, hopes to retain the privacy and accessibility of cryptocurrencies, which don’t require any official documents or identification numbers to transact with. Altman’s vision, however, is to introduce stronger user verification based on biometric authentication.

To do this, the company has developed a biometric imaging device known as the Orb. But the Orb doesn’t link biometric profiles to other identifying factors as is done in traditional finance. Instead, it is simply a means of verifying humanness.

The data it captures is then recorded on the Polygon network. But it isn’t aligned with other identifiers such as a user’s name.

As reported in the Financial Times, the fresh capital is arriving at a time when Tools for Humanity is accelerating the release of new products.