I just reviewed a bit more about what Worldcoin is, and honestly, it’s one of those projects that generates quite a bit of polarization in the community.

Basically, Worldcoin is a token (WLD) that operates on the Optimism network and is backed by well-known figures like Sam Altman, along with the organization Tools for Humanity. The core idea is to create a decentralized digital identity system, but here’s where it gets interesting: to verify that you are truly human, you need to scan your iris in what they call an Orb.

Yes, you read that right. Biometric data. The project uses these iris scans to ensure that each person can only claim one token and to combat bots and fake accounts. Everything is stored in a way that supposedly preserves your privacy, although, well, that’s what everyone says.

In terms of tokenomics, WLD functions for governance, staking, and as identity verification. The supply is fixed and was mainly distributed through airdrops to early users who participated in the scans. Transaction fees are minimal, and part of them are burned to maintain scarcity.

What’s interesting is that it also aims to support universal basic income initiatives (UBI), ensuring that each person can receive tokens through verified means. That sounds good in theory.

Now, the risks. Privacy concerns are real: we’re talking about large-scale biometric data collection. Additionally, regulatory uncertainty is serious. Many jurisdictions still lack clarity on how to handle the storage and use of this data. And honestly, the concept of Proof of Personhood is still quite experimental.

To summarize what Worldcoin is in simple terms: it’s an ambitious attempt to solve the problem of verifying humanity on the internet in a decentralized way, but it comes with significant trade-offs in privacy and regulation that we will probably continue debating for some time.