The founder of the prominent artificial intelligence company OpenAI launched his own cryptocurrency Monday as part of a new project he helped fund that would give people around the world crypto tokens in exchange for their biometric data.
The Sam Altman-backed startup Worldcoin launched its cryptocurrency on Monday. The startup gained early traction by signing up users worldwide to receive tokens in exchange for scans of their irises via a device known as an "orb." The scans are designed to help users distinguish between humans and bots and, in time, provide a universal basic income to help minimize job losses caused by the growth of artificial intelligence.
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The iris scans are used to create a "digital passport," which helps confirm if a user is an actual person. While the idea has drawn criticism over possible security breaches, Worldcoin co-founder Alex Blania told Reuters that Worldcoin's blockchain-based approach to data storage will be secure enough to preserve users' privacy.
Worldcoin also announced that it was scaling up its "orbing" operations and would launch new sites for data collection in 35 cities across 20 countries. The project currently has 2 million users worldwide.
The token's price initially surged on its launch. More than $25 million of the token was traded Monday morning, according to Binance's website. The token's value started at around $0.15 but hit a peak of $5.29.
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Skeptics have said that the company behaved unethically in collecting biometric data. "Beyond wanting to give away free home-made internet money, the purpose of harvesting massive amounts of biometric data, with little in the way of informed consent, was only vaguely understood by the orb operators," Pete Howson, assistant professor at Northumbria University, previously told the Washington Examiner.