On July 25th, Reuters reported that regulatory authorities in the United Kingdom are conducting an investigation into the Worldcoin project, a recent buzzworthy cryptocurrency initiative. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) spokesperson expressed concerns about the widespread use of biometric data by Worldcoin, especially given the rapid development of AI technology.
Worldcoin was launched and listed on major global exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Bybit on July 24th. The project is led by Sam Altman, a co-founder of OpenAI. In May 2023, Worldcoin successfully raised $115 million in funding from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bain Capital Crypto, and Distributed Global.
The primary goal of Worldcoin is to establish a new “financial and identity network,” providing users with digital IDs to distinguish themselves from AI online. During its testing phase, Worldcoin attracted over 2 million users, each receiving a certain amount of WLD tokens after undergoing iris scanning.
Worldcoin has deployed more than 1,500 iris scanning orbs in over 35 cities worldwide, including major cities like Buenos Aires, Madrid, Bogota, and Dubai.
Aside from the challenges in the UK, Worldcoin will not operate in the US due to “concerns about US regulations.” At the time of writing, WLD is trading around $2.4, marking an 8.26% increase in the last 24 hours.