Sam Altman may have been asked to leave OpenAI, but his involvement with crypto project Tools for Humanity, which builds Worldcoin, remains unbroken, a source close to the project told TechCrunch.
Altman has a “consistent and valuable” commitment to Tools for Humanity, and “that is not expected to change,” the source said. The source added that Altman is still chairman and co-founder of the project, confirming that information about the project Website is updated.
The news of Altman’s departure sent the Worldcoin token, WLD, plummeting to a low of $1.84 on Saturday, but the token recovered over the weekend and is currently trading on par with previous levels of $2.40 $ per CoinMarketCap data.
Worldcoin raised $115 million in May in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital. Since March, Altman has been on the project’s board of directors, but has not been involved in day-to-day operations.
“Proof of personhood is becoming increasingly important in the rapidly advancing age of artificial intelligence,” the Worldcoin Foundation told TechCrunch late Monday. The team behind Worldcoin remains focused on the project’s mission, “creating a more humane Internet and a more accessible global economy through World ID, a privacy-enhancing way to verify humanity and uniqueness online,” he said The company.
Worldcoin is known for controversial Orb material, which scans people’s irises and assigns them an ID that allows users to access Worldcoin’s app and a digital passport. The verification process is intended to prove the identity of individuals and prevent anyone from creating multiple accounts.
The crypto project faced pushback from some countries, notably Kenya, which banned Worldcoin from scanning more of its citizens’ eyeballs over concerns that the company had failed to inform users about the data security and privacy measures it had taken and the way of collecting the data. will be used or processed.
Worldcoin has also faced backlash from critics, who claim the company is targeting developing countries with looser privacy rules. The project gives most participants (outside the US and some other countries) 25 WLD tokens, worth about $58.5, in exchange for signing up, and this has prompted its critics to call it exploitative.
That didn’t stop people from signing up. Since it went public 120 days ago, more than 2.46 million people have signed up for Worldcoin, according to Website. Over the past seven days, more than 65,200 new accounts have been created and the project averages 137,000 wallet transactions daily.
Tiago Sada, head of product for Tools for Humanity and a key contributor to Worldcoin, previously told me that focusing on developing countries and providing free tokens was “fair” because most tech projects focus on emerging markets first, given that they are the “easiest”. these to function”. And Altman should be around to help out for the foreseeable future.
Read more of the ongoing coverage of Sam Altman’s firing from OpenAI and the fallout: