Worldcoin (WLD) is live: This is how users receive a basic income

Worldcoin (WLD) has been public for a few hours. The first marketplaces are already supporting the controversial project. Why opinions on the innovative idea differ so much and how users receive a basic income thanks to the new cryptocurrency.

Worldcoin (WLD) public

The controversial project Worldcoin and its cryptocurrency WLD are finally public. The developers of the Berlin-based company of the same name have been working on the new product since 2019.

Last night, the company announced the sudden release of the project on Twitter. Meanwhile, users can download the World App and trade WLD cryptocurrency on multiple crypto exchanges. Binance also wants to release WLD for trading today.

It is time. July 24, 2023.

The supporting trading platforms are increasing rapidly. At the time of writing, CoinMarketCap lists, among others, Bybit, Gate, Huobi and Bitget as trading platforms that have already listed the new token. WLD can also be exchanged for Wrapped Ethereum on the DEX Uniswap.

At the time of writing, the market value of WLD is $3.00. With a market capitalization of 325 million US dollars, the project has already reached the top 100 crypto currencies, at the end of which it is currently staying.

The project is getting so much attention not only because of its technical features and unique features, but also because of the involvement of entrepreneur Sam Altman.

Altman rose to prominence as the founder and CEO of OpenAI. The company greatly contributed to the popularization of artificial intelligence by releasing ChatGPT in November 2022. Altman’s participation in Worldcoin is therefore considered by many interested parties to be a guarantee of success.

According to Crunchbase, the company previously raised $125 million from institutional investors. The well-known investment company A16z Crypto is also among the investors.

“Worldcoin consists of a confidential digital identity (the World ID) and a digital currency (WLD) that is obtained simply for being human,” the company explained in a press release .

What is Worldcoin (WLD)?

Worldcoin’s digital currency is called WLD and was initially based on Ethereum‘s ERC-20 token standard. A few days ago he migrated to the Optimism scaling solution. 75 percent of the token is to be distributed to the user community – specifically 7.5 billion WLD.

The maximum supply of the WLD is therefore ten billion. At the time of writing, the supply in circulation is 104 million. Another 9.8 percent of the maximum supply is owned by the developers.

13.5 percent of all WLD goes to institutional investors who funded the tech company Tools For Humanity (TFH) , which is behind Worldcoin. TFH itself also creates a reserve that corresponds to 1.7 percent of all WLD.

This is how users receive a basic income

A central content of Worldcoin is a worldwide basic income that every registered user receives, provided this is legal in their home country. The income is distributed in the form of WLD and is the same everywhere on earth.

In order for users to receive their share, they must visit a so-called orb in their vicinity, which then records biometric data from their eye. After this process, users receive a unique World ID.

According to product manager Tiago Sada, there are currently around 200 orbs worldwide that have already identified more than two million users. The number of devices is expected to increase significantly in the future. By the end of the year, 1,500 devices will be accessible in 35 cities in twenty different countries. Users can find and book the next Orb within the World App.

After registration, users initially receive 25 WLD and then regular payments. If you don’t want to wait for your share, you can download the World App today and assert your claims there. However, access will only be refunded once registration has taken place by scanning the iris.

“Worldcoin is an attempt at global convergence. The road to get there will be difficult and the outcome is uncertain. Finding new ways to broadly share the coming technological prosperity is a crucial challenge of our time,” the company explains its efforts.

Why Worldcoin is being criticized

Many privacy advocates and parts of the crypto scene criticize Worldcoin because the project poses an enormous risk to user data. The biometric data collected is intended to distinguish between real people and bots on the Internet.

This is intended to reduce the influence of bots – especially in the DeFi and Web3 space, where developers may require a World ID login to access their projects.

Although the recordings of the human iris are not associated with a real name, the biometric data could be sufficient to identify the person in question and could therefore be misused by both unauthorized persons and authorities.