Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, is closing in on landing $100 million in funding to create a new crypto asset, according to a new Financial Times report.
Altman’s crypto project, Worldcoin, which plans to use a custom biometric imaging device known as “the Orb” to scan peoples’ eyeballs and verify their unique identity, is currently in beta.
Once their unique identity is verified, the Orb creates a “digital World ID” that the project says “can be used pseudonymously in a wide variety of everyday applications without revealing the user’s identity.”
Participants in the project will receive Worldcoin, which the project says will be the “first token to be globally and freely distributed to people just for being a unique individual.”
Explains the Worldcoin website,
“Importantly, Worldcoin – through World ID’s unique digital identity – can play an important role in demonstrating humanness in an online world populated with increasingly advanced artificial intelligence.”
The Financial Times reports that Worldcoin plans to launch its blockchain in the next six weeks. Previous investors in the project reportedly include Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund and disgraced FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Altman’s OpenAI created ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that went viral in November and December of 2022. In January, Microsoft invested $10 billion in the company.
A separate, unrelated crypto asset called WorldCoin (WDC), surged by more than 25% on Monday, likely due to confusion surrounding the Financial Times news report. The project clarifies on its website that it has nothing to do with Altman’s venture.
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