Crypto Startup That Wants to Scan Everyone’s Eyeballs Is Having Some Trouble

Hilarious that the "eyeball hash" is stored in a normal database, not the blockchain. And Worldcoin is already at a billion dollar valuation.

I don't mean to turn this into a personal attack or flame-war, but I used to respect Sam Altman a lot. It was very hard to watch him transition OpenAI from a non-profit to a for-profit company, and now it's even harder to watch him jump into the crypto-scam game. I can understand why a young founder would pitch this- "Imagine, everyone on the planet will eventually become a user! Unlimited growth!" But someone like Sam Altman surely has made enough money at this point, so why get in on this? Genuinely asking, because I don't understand the point of this.

I don't get it. So the goal is to jumpstart a cryptocurrency, but make it equitable by giving equal shares to as many people as possible? But what happens next? I assume the same dynamics as with normal currency where the wealth is quickly concentrated in the hands of a few as most people spend their allotments on immediate needs like food and shelter.

Does the free allotment program ever stop or are you SOL if you're not yet born?

Edit:

Ah, it uses the Ethereum blockchain[1]. Also, this is beyond parody:

> We searched for existing devices that meet these requirements at a global scale, but found none. For this reason, Worldcoin developed the Orb.

[1] https://worldcoin.org/how-the-launch-works

I'm honestly astounded by this. This might just be the stupidest idea I've ever possibly heard. I mean, okay, "distributing money for everyone fairly" sounds noble (though maybe naive, too...), but like...literally everything beyond that point is either a) a terrible idea or b) impossible to implement in any meaningful way. And all that is not even getting to the absolute privacy nightmare that is this startup just going around collecting people's biometric data. Even Google, who has every other piece of data that's ever existed about me, doesn't have my eyeball data. I'm certainly not giving it to someone to get a little bit of crypto cash...

I'm completely baffled at how this has any funding whatsoever.

> Asked about the complaints, Blania said that some operators were unhappy that the company would no longer be paying them, and said that some of them “did questionable things or didn’t perform well.” He also noted that the operators can have “very misaligned incentives” with the larger startup.

Setting aside the initial operational challenges (national regulations, smartphone access, operator conduct), there seems to be a serious misunderstanding or perhaps oversimplification of economics for a “world coin.” Of course there is going to be fraud if the system you set up (where each operator gets paid for each person they recruit (a questionable distribution model already)) incentivizes recruitment only with no quality control. Of course there are going to be people scanning dog eyes, dead people’s eyes, eventually fake eyes because why wouldn’t they? You have not created a system where they should not do this, unless you’re relying on honesty, a strange assumption for a cryptocurrency.

Paired with the seeming indignation the leadership has that people don’t like 1) not getting paid for their work and 2) when you close up shop after harvesting their biometric data, this seems to be a very naive system at the outset. Plus, really, you’re answer to “open source our biometric data we gave you” is “we’ll open source our protocol”? Cryptocurrency is about ownership. I own my private key, but now with world coin, I can’t own my own eyes?

Such a privacy nightmare. It's mind-boggling that a group of engineers brought this thing to life, the whole time thinking "this is a good idea. we'll compile a database of people's iris' and associate it with a public transaction ledger". The only world in which this makes sense is one where an express goal is to help the state track the money of individuals (you might like that in a democratic society with strong traditions around rule of law and due process, but may like it less in authoritarian nations).

That sounds as if it was set up to hit as many VC attracting keywords as possible.

What happens when people get older? Can you still identify it's the same iris when the iris was scanned 15 years ago?

I don't get what they are trying to solve. Just fair distribution of coins? Once everyone has an equal number of WorldCoins, then what is the plan?

Who wants to join me in doing this exact thing with dental records?

The market is so much higher, while there are fewer than living 10B customers today (including some pets),

a dental version supports all 109B people who have ever lived. PLUS THEIR PETS!

That is ALMOST 11x the potential market hence market cap!!!

I am having trouble thinking of the dental equivalent to Orb though, everything I come up with sounds too squicky or I am afraid Disney owns, like the TOOTH-FAERY. So I need a cofounder.

It’s all in bad faith. If it was done in good faith, they would be giving away Bitcoin sats for scanning the eyeballs. The fact they printed a shittoken is highly suspect. Please do not push your shitcoins on the developing world. Pushing your fake money is neocolonialism.

Everything I know about Sam Altman points to that he's different than the people you might associate him with. He really seems to be committed to making tech (and money) fair and equitable for everyone, and he's put out a lot of random projects with this intention. While not every idea is going to work, you should look into his writing and initiatives if you're curious.

He doesn't have all the answers, but he is doing a lot of good stuff.