Sam Altman has a startup that intends to give a special type of cryptocurrency to every person on earth. But first, it wants to scan everybody's eyeballs. The former head of the Silicon Valley business incubator Y Combinator is one of Worldcoin's three founders. Among the many parts of its plan, Worldcoin has designed an orb-shaped device that would scan a person's iris to build a unique personal identifier.
The company is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital arm of Coinbase Global, linkedin founder Reid Hoffman and Day One Ventures. It recently raised about $25 million from investors.
Altman, 36, said he conceived the idea in late 2019. The intention was to use cryptocurrency to spread money around equitably, inspired by the trendy economic theory known as universal basic income. “I've been very interested in things like universal basic income and what's going to happen to global wealth redistribution and how we can do that better,” he said. “Is there a way we can use technology to do that at global scale?”
Worldcoin is still preparing for a formal unveiling, but for now, it is evaluating what it might take to one day get cryptocurrency to as many as possible. Under Altman, Y Combinator planned experiments on universal basic income that have faced some delays and complications. In a 2019 interview with economist Tyler Cowen, Altman discussed how a system that could distribute money to all could circumvent the need for government redistribution.
With Worldcoin, it promises “a new global digital currency that will launch by giving a share to every single person on earth”, says an online job description.
