OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Worldcoin raises $115 million in round led by Blockchain Capital

Worldcoin, a crypto project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has raised $115 million in its Series C funding, according to a report by Reuters.

Blockchain Capital, a leading venture capital firm focused on the blockchain industry, led the funding. Worldcoin’s project also received backing during the round from Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Crypto, and Distributed Global.

The Worldcoin team will use the funds to support the development of a decentralised World ID and the project’s crypto wallet World App.

What’s Worldcoin?

Worldcoin is a decentralised open-source protocol that was launched by Tools for Humanity, a research lab that currently helps the project as advisors to the Worldcoin Foundation. The protocol offers the World ID, a digital identity that aims to help prove personhood while ensuring privacy protection for people amid the growing integration of artificial intelligence.

The Worldcoin token is explained as a utility and governance token that is being distributed freely to people around the world. The protocol is currently in beta, but expects to live before the end of the quarter.

“Most misunderstood” crypto project

Commenting on the project and why they invested in it, Blockchain Capital general partner Spencer Bogart tweeted:

“I thought Worldcoin was some dystopian Orwellian nightmare, then our team invested hundreds of hours evaluating what the project’s contributors have actually built and I completely changed my mind.”

2/ Worldcoin is quite likely the single most misunderstood project in all of crypto (and that’s saying something). At first glance, it appears to be a noxious combination of hardware, biometrics, crypto and AI.

— Spencer Bogart (@CremeDeLaCrypto) May 25, 2023

According to him, no crypto project has completely been “misunderstood” like Worldcoin is. He says that although at a first glance at the protocol would suggest it’s just a “noxious combination of hardware, biometrics, crypto and AI,” that assessment is off the mark. On what it offers and seeks to achieve, Bogart noted:

“Worldcoin has a unique opportunity to establish and scale a new privacy-preserving primitive for the internet (World ID) that enables any application to easily distinguish between machines (bots) and humans.”

According to sign up details on the company’s website, the project has onboarded nearly 2 million people so far.