OpenAI chief executive officer (CEO) Sam Altman is promoting cryptocurrency project “Worldcoin” and trying to raise $50 million U.S. for the company behind the digital token.
However, Worldcoin has proven to be a controversial project as its main product is “World ID,” a digital passport that proves its holder is a human being and not an artificial intelligence bot.
To receive a World ID, a person signs up to have their iris scanned by Worldcoin. Once the scan verifies that a person is a human, it creates a World ID for them.
While Worldcoin says it aims to create a “global identity and financial network,” its collection of people’s biometric data has drawn the scrutiny of regulators and governments around the world.
Regulators in countries such as the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Germany have said that they are investigating Worldcoin following its official launch this past July.
To date, more than 2.6 million people have signed up to have their irises scanned by Worldcoin's “orb” device in exchange for a digital ID and free cryptocurrency.
Altman has been making public appearances to help “Tools For Humanity,” the company behind Worldcoin, raise $50 million U.S. in seed money from investors.
The company is trying to raise funds by selling the project's cryptocurrency tokens at a discounted rate.
The WLD crypto token started trading on July 24 of this year, hitting a peak of $5.29 U.S. from a starting price of just $0.15 U.S. It currently trades at $2.59 U.S. per token.
Altman is the cofounder and current chairperson of Tools for Humanity, the developer of Worldcoin and the WLD cryptocurrency.
Previously, Tools For Humanity raised $115 million U.S. in a Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital, alongside the a16z venture capital firm, and Bain Capital.
Both OpenAI and Tools For Humanity are privately held companies and their stocks don’t trade on public exchanges.
