Worldcoin (WLD) was convicted of cheating the client base at the expense of children
Date: 2023-07-25 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: IN WORLD
The method of distribution of WLD tokens is hushed up, and the risks due to the centralization of Worldcoin are too great
The Worldcoin (WLD) cryptocurrency project, funded by the creator of the ChatGPT chatbot, has been actively expanding its user base to include children in Kenya and Chile. A blockchain investigator under the pseudonym @zachxbt drew attention to this on Twitter.
The analyst published an archived version of the tweet from Worldcoin co-founder Max Novendstern. In a now-deleted tweet, Novendstern boasted that the project is "being actively promoted by children in Kenya and Chile." It also claimed that through the scheme, the project attracted about 150,000 new users. However, the exact extent of the exploitation of children for the development of Worldcoin remains unclear.
The co-founder posted the tweet back in October 2021, but it's unclear exactly when he decided to delete it. To this day, Novendstern is trying to convince the community that there was no implication of slave labor in that message. For example, in a comment under the tweets of the blockchain investigator, Novendstern tried to assure that the message was not written by him, but by his friend from Ghana. The co-founder of Worldcoin also assures that he deleted his previous tweet so as not to contribute to the confusion because of a message taken out of context.
However, it seems that the crypto community does not believe such explanations, calling them "a lie of the level of a seven-year-old child." Even the MIT Technology Review magazine of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote about the exploitation of labor in Worldcoin.
Pitfalls of Worldcoin
Skepticism around the Worldcoin project is also heightened by the opaque method of distributing tokens. Initially, out of 10 billion WLD, about 20% was allocated for private investors, but later the figure rose to 25%. Recall that Worldcoin in total attracted about $125 million from almost two dozen investors. These included venture capital giants like Andressen Horowitz, the troubled Digital Currency Group, Coinbase Ventures, the now-closed hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and others.
In a recent interview with the Bankless YouTube channel, one of the founders of Worldcoin, Alex Bania, refused to answer the question of how exactly the WLD token is distributed, citing the "uncertainty" around the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the United States. At the same time, the confusion around regulation did not prevent the project from bringing tens of millions of WLD to the crypto exchanges Binance, Bybit and OKX, where trading is already in full swing. The token is not available in the US. It is unclear exactly how American Worldcoin depositors "offload" their investments.
Earlier, the co-founder of the Ethereum ecosystem, Vitalik Buterin, also criticized Worldcoin. As the developer noted, Worldcoin at one time even allowed the use of a phone number as an alternative to scanning the iris. It is unclear how many users managed to register in the project under this scheme. Moreover, the Worldcoin Foundation has enough power to implement a backdoor to cheat the user base, Buterin noted.
