Orb Outrage: Worldcoin Cofounder Defends Project Amid Backlash - Ep. 528

Unchained

Laura Shin

Business News, News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Worldcoin is getting hit from all sides. Following a popular launch in late July, critics from the crypto community and public sector alike are coming out in droves with concerns about privacy, data protection, and tokenomics. Worldcoin co-founder Alex Blania joins the show to address the recent criticism and reiterate the project’s lofty goals. “It sounds crazy,” he said, “so you really need to understand the technology to understand why it’s not concerning. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights: why Worldcoin believes in the idea of a universal basic income (UBI) how World ID actually works, from the initial “orb” scan to actually using the app Alex’s comments on the rise of a black market for World IDs whether Worldcoin is storing people’s biometric data how people don’t really understand the nuances of getting their irises scanned and why it’s fine that the “average person will not understand how crypto works,” according to Alex whether Worldcoin took into consideration the various regulations around the world what the purpose of the WLD token is why the project decided to launch the token with a low float how Alex got convinced to join Worldcoin and become one of its leaders why Alex believes that Worldcoin will become a “very powerful technology” that will be the main project for onboarding people to crypto Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com Arbitrum Foundation TOKEN2049 Guest: Alex Blania, cofounder of Worldcoin Previous appearances on Unchained: Is Sam Altman's Worldcoin the End of People's Privacy? Links Previous coverage of Unchained on Worldcoin: Why CoinFund Believes Worldcoin Could Become More Popular Than Bitcoin Unchained: Worldcoin Can Be More ‘Widely Distributed’ Than Bitcoin, CoinFund Executives Say Worldcoin Launches Token on Mainnet, Plans to Deploy 1,500 Eyeball Scanning Orbs Is Sam Altman's Worldcoin the End of People's Privacy? CoinDesk: Worldcoin Could Enable Wider Distribution of Crypto Than Even Bitcoin, Says CoinFund Worldcoin Releases Tokenomics, Report Geofenced for Some Countries The Block: German authorities probe Worldcoin project over privacy: Reuters Reuters: Kenyan government suspends activities of Worldcoin in country Rest of World: Why are people lining up for Worldcoin eyeball scans? “Easy $50,” What do I think about biometric proof of personhood? By Vitalik Buterin MIT Technology Review: Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts: How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users Ouriel Ohayon’s video Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hi pre-source for all things crypto. I'm your host,
0:08.4	Laura Shinn, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago, and as a
0:13.6	senior editor of Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time.
0:18.4	This is the August 8th, 2023 episode of Unchained. Arbitrum's leading layer to scaling solutions
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0:43.0	Bology, Sweeney Vossen, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are their haze, and 200 others will hit the
0:48.3	stage, joining over 10,000 attendees. Visit token2049.com for 65% off regular ticket prices with
0:55.7	the code Unchained. Link in the description. Buy, trade and spend crypto on the Crypto.com app.
1:02.2	New users can enjoy zero credit card fees on crypto purchases in the first seven days. Download
1:08.3	the Crypto.com app and get $25 with the code Laura. Link in the description. If you've been
1:14.7	enjoying Unchained and find the discussions here fascinating, mind-blowing, or as crypto tends to be,
1:20.3	downright bonkers, please share this episode with a friend to keep the conversation going.
1:25.6	Today's guest is Alex Plania, co-founder of WorldCoin. Welcome Alex.
1:30.7	Thanks for having me. WorldCoin developed with the goal of distributing
1:35.3	universal basic income to all 8 billion people on the planet. And in order to do that, it needed to
1:42.0	solve the problem of personhood, which is a way of detecting whether some or the entity, I guess,
1:49.2	that is being transacted with is a person versus an AI or some other kind of bot.
1:56.6	And I wondered how it was that this was decided that this goal of universal basic income should be
2:05.1	a goal for humanity. So actually universal basic income was, I think it was a motivation for
2:12.6	personally, right? Because like Sam Altman. Sam Altman, right? Sam Altman, because he's been
	...

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