You may have heard about Worldcoin already. It has been making noise in the crypto world after launching out of beta on July 24, 2023. When I first heard about Worldcoin, my first reaction without even knowing anything about it was - Another Scam! As it kept coming up in various places, I had to take a look. As I was learning a little bit more about it, my opinion started changing a little bit. I still don't know much about it. I still am not convinced it is solving any problem or will have benefits to people. While I don't want to call it a complete scam, I will most likely stay away. I am not even sure if it deserve further research and understanding at this time.

The reason at first I labeled it as a scam was because of the name of the token. Ever since bitcoin became a global phenomenon, many have tried to create various coins and token to repeat bitcoin's success. Even a fraction of bitcoin's success would result in massive amounts of quick money. Some have chosen to create legitimate projects focusing on real world problems that needed solutions. Others chose to scam people. Any crypto project that starts with word World sounds scammy to me for some reason. Perhaps because intentions seem to be global adoption, instead of solving a problem. Or perhaps there is such a big problem that is being address, that it needs such a name. Initially I didn't pay attention to Coin part. Now that I know it has no native blockchain and is a layer 2 token, I can't call it a coin. It is a token. Would Worldtoken sound the same? I don't know.

I started giving it a benefit of a doubt, once I learned that co-founder of the Worldcoin has an impressive resume and the project is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars. The name of OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has appeared. Sam Altman was also a president of Y Combinator and CEO of Reddit. OpenAI and its products like ChatGPT and DALL-E have been the main topic of 2023. Everybody is talking about AI today because of what OpenAI has built. Everybody today know what ChatGPT is, and use these tools on daily basis. This revolutionary innovation woke the world up to the reality of advancements in AI and near future possibilities and disruptions. Now I can see why so many people are talking about Worldcoin. It is probably not what Worldcoin is actually about, but the success and reputation of Sam Altman. If Altman is behind the project, it must be important? Yet, I am still failing to understand the benefits of the Worldcoin. Common sense dictates someone who has built himself a reputation as an innovator wouldn't risk it being involved in scam project. What am I missing?

Altman is probably the most recognized name among those who are involved in Worldcoin. But there are more who are backing who have decent reputations as well. Would they risk their reputation too in being involved in scams or potential scams? There are also hundreds of millions of dollars invested. Would they take such risks their investments? For these reasons I can't call Worldcoin a scam. But I can't call it a useful innovation either. I just don't see the benefits. I don't think their approach will solve the problems they are trying to solve.

There are two main problems Worldcoin and it's parent company Tools for Humanity is trying to solve:

• Universtal Basic Income
• Tools against AI

The idea is AI is advancing so fast that this technology will pose serious dangers to humans. Among the top threats of AI is unemployment. Many jobs will be replaced by AI tech, automation, and robotics. This means, people and government should start considering UBI now, to be prepared for the AI future. But also, since AI is getting so good at imitating humans, there is a need for tools that can easily verify humans and distinguish from AI. This all sounds dystopian and out of scifi movies. But when this description of future is coming from somebody who made the topic of AI the main topic of the year, and someone who is a CEO of a company that demonstrated the power of AI, then we can't just ignore, can we? It all started with ChatGPT. Now there are many more and all tech giants competing with each other. But we for the first time were able to use these tools ourselves to see how powerful they are. Not only that. We have been witnessing rapid updates that only took few months and made even bigger impact on how these AI tools work. It is hard to imagine what AI space will look like in just couple of years. I am sure all the tools of today would become obsolete in no time.

However, I am not prepared to embrace the idea that AI will take over the world and hurt humans with things like replacing eliminating jobs. I think we are in similar path as we were before, and technology always made big changes in society. But with that there were also benefits. I think AI tools can actually empower people, and make their talents and efficiency go up and maybe even leave more time for non-work activities. I think there will be many more jobs, much more interesting ones. But I digress.

So, the topic is the Worldcoin. The project has eye scanners called Orbs. There are Orb operators. Think of them like miner, validators or witnesses. Orb operators get the Orbs from Worldcoin and start onboarding people by scanning their eyes. People get wallets and worldcoins in return. Orb operators receive worldcoins as well. They are incentivized to scan as many eyes as possible. Because that is how they make money. The goal is to get all human eyes scanned. We already dislike where it is heading. However, these scans are encrypted and they are not suppose to share with others, etc, etc. How can we trust? This is where things start falling apart. Trust! We have already learned that adding trust to the equation is not the solution in blockchain. Removing trust from the equation has been the real solution. We are suppose to be building Trustless systems. It seems here we need to trust Worldcoin, we need to trust Tools for Humanity, we need to trust Orb operators. And all of them have their interests misaligned from real people.

Ok, so Orb operators make money by scanning eyes. There are already reports of shady behavior of buying scans, selling scans, etc. I would never trust Orb operators. They are just random people who are trying to make money. Anybody can apply to become an Orb operator. Now, the Worldcoin and development team can't be trusted either, in my opinion. They will be issuing 10 billion tokens. 8 billion suppose to be for all humans. 1 token each, or something like that. But 2-2.5 billion tokens go to Worldcoin development team and investors. We have seen these deals before, how original dev team and backers get the big piece of the pie. How does this make sense? It actually does make sense when we consider that this entire project is centralized, and has nothing to do with decentralization. The goal is not decentralization. The goal is to collect all iris scans and provide this as a verification service to governments if or when they choose to implement UBI.

Going back to the original idea Worldcoin is theorizing about how AI will replace jobs and this will force governments to implement some kind of UBI to keep things stable. When they do decide to implement UBI, Worldcoin will be there to provide iris scanned accounts to prevent fraud. Or maybe they want to prevent AI from claiming UBI.

At this point it is already obvious that scanning eyes won't solve the fraud. It seems fraud is already happening when people are being paid to get their eyes scanned, and there are people willing to buy these scans because the see a speculative opportunity here. If government were to implement UBI, I think they already know how to get hold of their citizens. They do so already when tax season arrives. Can blockchain make things more efficient and transparent. Of course. But these blockchains must be decentralized, and we already have them.

These are only my thoughts, which change as I learned more. I am not prepared to call Worldcoin a scam, but I can't call it a useful solution to anything either. The more I learn, the more I am confused about this entire project. If you know more and feel differently, feel free to change my mind in the comments.