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A few hours ago I already spoke a little bit about the WorldCoin project, explaining it without giving my opinion, now I am going to criticize it.
I am quite intrigued by the opinion of certain international media, which suggest that Worldcoin's user base is mainly developing people who have been "exploited" to sign up. Personally, I consider this absurd. Exploitation, as I see it, involves the use of violence or force, and simply offering something to someone cannot be considered exploitation. Offering a job at $5 an hour in a country where the norm might be $4 an hour does not seem exploitative to me, just as in a country where the rate is $10 an hour, offering $12 is not exploitation. However, I do have a problem with the idea of presenting this user base as genuine when, in fact, they appear to be "bought" users. But then again, this is common practice in the cryptocurrency industry, sometimes regrettable, sometimes a sound strategy. There are many examples of both cases.
Reading the official documentation of the project, I was struck when they said: "we expect these identities to be used by those who mint them". It is already confirmed that these identities are being sold and bought on the black market. I do not consider this to be a sound project for several reasons:
the identities could be sold, compromising the security of applications and projects that require the identity to be authentic. In addition, these identities could be forged. As they themselves indicate in the project, they believe in decentralization and that other companies also manufacture and distribute Orbs. But what prevents the use of fake human eyes? If these passports were to become very popular, the incentive to counterfeit them would grow, and money would flow to that target.
Secondly, if these identities can be bought and sold, what advantages do they offer over an identity in Ethereum, for example, a wallet? With wallets, there are applications that issue NFT's that certify that you have passed a given course. Moreover, these NFT's are non-transferable, i.e. they are associated with that identity. What would prevent selling a complete wallet? The buyer would have to trust the seller, but still. Or simply put, what would prevent an application that issues an NFT certificate from giving it to someone who is actually using a third party to take that course? Nothing prevents it. However, my point here is: it's more expensive and cumbersome to have an identity on Worldcoin than on Ethereum, it's less integrated into the ecosystem, and it doesn't bring enough unique or additional value except "proof that there's a human behind it". But Ethereum wallets can provide that same proof in many other, simpler and more effective ways. Gitcoin and its passport are a good example, but there are many more, such as Civic.
In terms of its objectives, the idea of facilitating global voting and universal basic income is very ambiguous and in my opinion, totally impractical. The world is driven by incentives and power, not by an elite planning for the benefit of all. There is no global power organizing the economy, and there is no incentive for it to exist.
Moreover, universal basic income has proven to be impractical in most countries, either due to lack of resources or implementation problems. Trials in countries such as Japan or Finland did not produce very promising results. However, if AGI ever becomes a reality, universal basic income could theoretically make sense, but it is also true that its implementation carries its difficulties and risks. Personally, I resist the idea of social engineering from above. Democracies and free systems work thanks to a balance of power, not thanks to the good will of the powerful. I mean that the implementation or not of universal basic income in that fictitious scenario where AI replaces all human labor (something that could happen), will not depend on the will and desire of individuals nor on the good work of expert "social engineers", but on the balance of power and incentives of each entity involved: individuals, companies, governments, organizations, etc.
On the other hand, the other goals of the project, global financial inclusion and the fight against AI-based bots, seem much more sensible and achievable to me. Global financial inclusion is a laudable goal, as even today, billions of people still lack access to banking services, as is the case in India and Africa. But Ethereum and Bitcoin, among others, have already done a great job here, allowing them to have access to many types of financial assets. No wonder some of these countries are the world leaders in number of users. From Bitcoin to stable currencies such as USDC or USDT, to financial services of all kinds based on blockchain or fully centralized applications.
What does Worldcoin bring to the table? It assures that a wallet is backed by a real person... but nothing more. Knowing that that "real person" may have sold his ID, knowing that IDs will even be forged at the time of issuance, knowing that on Ethereum there are more robust, less expensive and much more flexible alternatives to verify identities.... What does Worldcoin bring to the table? At first glance, it seems that not much.
Regarding the fight against bots, I have held a thesis for years: the Internet will be divided in two, on the one hand a centralized and free internet where the product is people using free services in exchange for advertising, for this to be profitable, we need to know that they are people, not bots. With the rise of AI, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between people and bots, in the future it may be impossible, so the verification of identities will be essential.
The other internet will be open, free, decentralized and with much more anonymity, this internet will be paid and largely through cryptocurrencies.
Worldcoin seems to be a confirmation of this thesis, but, in my opinion, it is likely to fail. As I mentioned above, I believe that human identity verification can be done more effectively, cheaply, and securely in Ethereum, and that Worldcoin has an insurmountable obstacle in the fact that identities can be sold and forged, compromising its security.
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