The WorldCoin Foundation, the organization behind the digital asset protocol developed by OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman, said on Friday that it is developing the “core components” of the Orbi technology. In a move to foster trust and collaborative growth, WorldCoin says anyone can inspect the code of Orb's Eye scanners.
A WorldCoin spokesperson told Decrypt that “open source builds trust, transparency and authentication, and encourages developer communities to further advance the technology. This builds on the Iris code open source late last year and the hardware open a year ago.”
WorldCoin is a separate crypto project from OpenAI that is intended to establish a global identity standard that verifies “body” to combat bots. Altman and Alex Blaney launched it in January 2023 as Tools for Humanity. In July, Worldcoin launched its WLD token on the Optimism mainnet.
Worldcoin's Orb is an iris code stored on the Worldcoin blockchain to provide a unique “fingerprint” by scanning users' irises. This scan forms the basis of the global identity associated with the user.
WorldCoin has faced controversy over its eye-scanning technology, with the company offering the WLD token in exchange for users to scan their biometric data with the Orb. Security is another concern highlighted in Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin's post.
“If even an orb manufacturer is malicious or hacked, it can generate an unlimited number of fake iris scan hashes and give them real-world IDs,” Buterin warned.
The foundation says user privacy is a top priority.
“Privacy and security are always top priorities when building Orb,” Worldcoin said in the announcement. “Additional audits are underway and, coupled with open source, reflect the foundation's commitment to continued high transparency around privacy and security.”
In February, blockchain-based esports platform Community Gaming said it would use Worldcoin's WorldID to root out cheaters. Community game Worldcoin Orb has clarified that the company's World ID integration is unnecessary.
Following the Orb news, WorldCoin's WLD currency rallied 4% to $8.40 – with volatility up to 10% in the past 24 hours, currently beating the broader cryptocurrency market.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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