Worldcoin, a digitalised economy for humans and its signature cryptocurrency, WLD, launched with an unremarkable splash in the global crypto pool on 24 July 2023. It ended its first week of trading at $2.30, which is 30% less than the debut of $3.30.
Rocky start to Worldcoin’s first week on the market
Co-founded by Open AI’s CEO, Sam Altman, this initiative aims to protect economic privacy while defining humans from AI entities. All people can get WLD – all they have to do is visit orbs presently located in certain cities throughout the world, identify themselves and scan their irises to verify personhood.
By doing this, a person gets a World ID and free WLD cryptocurrency. The Worldcoin website encapsulates the project’s mission. It stated:
“Worldcoin is an attempt at global scale alignment, the journey will be challenging and the outcome uncertain. But finding new ways to broadly share the coming technological prosperity is a critical challenge of our time.”
However, this drive raised some eyebrows, including that of Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, who questioned issues such as privacy, centralisation, and security. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), a British privacy watchdog, has the same concerns. This organisation noted Worldcoin’s launch in the UK and said it would be making enquiries to test how secure and private the initiative is.
In response, Worldcoin released its audit reports, conducted by Nethermind and Least Authority, on 28 July 2023. These indicated that 24 of the 26 identified security issues were resolved. Parties are watching the Worldcoin movements with interest after this rocky start.
