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The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is the hard taskmaster in relation to cryptocurrency in America, but the G20 (Group of 20) an intergovernmental forum for economic co-operation held a G20 Summit in New Delhi, India which gave world leaders an opportunity to sit at the table to discuss planned proposals calling for tougher regulations on crypto assets & in addition there is China's push to mandate e-commerce platforms adopt the digital Yuan & no doubt these are talking points in the cryptocurrency world. But whilst proposed tougher cryptocurrency regulations have been mapped out, brought to the table & discussed at the G20 Summit in New Delhi & the digital Yuan has turned into bullying tactics, the partnership between A.I & blockchain technology has led to a potentially serious emergence of a sinister potentially totalitarian agenda playing out behind the scenes & which is the subject of huge privacy concerns. Nigeria, a nation renowned as being the most blockchain savvy along with India & Brazil have had their government outlaw Nigerian citizens' ownership of crypto assets but Africa & even India in spite of being nations that are blockchain savvy find their blockchain expertise meeting head-on with the emergence of what can potentially threaten personal freedom & the threat is Worldcoin & the question is: would Worldcoin be the kryptonite of crypto-loving Nigerians who eagerly anticipate Worldcoin's Nigerian launch.
Worldcoin What You Must Know
Sam Altman the CEO of OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT on July 24 2023 launched Worldcoin which is built on Optimism layer 2 which means first & foremost Worldcoin beyond a shadow of doubt is not decentralized. But the goal of Worldcoin is the creation of a global digital I.D which is seriously disturbing & has captured the attention of privacy advocates & naturally the response of Worldcoin is to downplay & dismiss potential privacy issues as being unsubstantiated claims. But a potentially disturbing issue is the goal of Worldcoin via funding of Artificial Intelligence is to enable democratic processes which pave the way for Universal Basic Income & naturally Worldcoin has not elaborated on this in their published whitepaper so the integration between the Worldcoin project & University Basic Income is unclear so far.
The WLD token is the native token of Worldcoin, users receive WLD tokens in a digital wallet via a specialized application called: "World App". Willing participants have their iris scanned by Orb operators who use an optical metallic scanner known as an Orb resembling a metallic ball which collects the unique user biometric data using cryptographic technology which is then converted into strings of anonymous iris code which is a "hash" of user iris information, then stored on a blockchain & as an incentive, users are rewarded for their voluntary participation in the project with free fixed amount of WLD tokens for participation. After scanning their iris, users then get Award I.D which in fact is a form of digital passport which verifies user humanity but the metallic Orbs create a centralization risk to users who voluntarily participate & of course Richard Branson founder of the Virgin Group has been renowned for endorsing a global passport & himself has made huge investments in cryptocurrency, Worldcoin plans to permit global corporations to use their iris scanning identity verification metallic Orb technology & whether Richard Branson plans to adopt Worldcoin metallic Orb iris scanning technology for now at least has not openly demonstrated interest but the question is: when does Worldcoin attract Richard Branson as an investor in their project? Worldcoin has attracted investors such as COINBASE Ventures & LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman & has even gained the attraction of hundreds of young people who voluntarily opted to stand in long lines for Orb operators to scan their iris for free money & sign up for Sam Altman's controversial project, because the fact that hundreds of young people stood in line at Worldcoin Orb locations provides a snapshot of how CBDCs will be rolled out, hundreds of youth stood in line at Worldcoin Orb locations not just in Kenya, India & Japan, but young people in London, UK stood in line at Worldcoin Orb locations for free money, because whilst China take CBDC very seriously, which a lot of the blockchain savvy world talk about, another country as serious as China is about CBDC adoption is the United Kingdom.
Is Sam Altman Trustworthy?
Sam Altman requests that everyone trust him with their biometric data, but if the user is clueless about how their unique biometric data is being handled, where their unique biometric data is being shared & who their unique biometric data is being shared with? Then these are huge red flags.
What you need to consider is: can you trust the manufacturer of the Orb, given the fact that Orb technology is a centralization risk? This question may in fact act as yet another red flag.
Proof of Personhood
Proof-of-Humanity requires user voice verification or user selfie, one example being Revolut the British Fintech requiring a user selfie as part of their KYC process
Worldcoin offers what is called Proof-of-Personhood & as the reader of this article you may be asking: "What is Proof-of-Personhood"?
In the virtual world of cyber interactions online, you as the user will be asked proof of your humanity, where you solve a captcha & then check the "I'm not a Robot" box & this is due to the increasing difficulty to distinguish robots from humans in the virtual world due to the rise & popularity of A.I.
Proof-of-Personhood is a verified I.D solution designed to distinguish humans from A.I whilst safeguarding user privacy. For instance as a former Network Marketer for Karatbars International when my sponsor took me through the sign-up process, I was told to undergo a KYC or Know Your Customer & KYC is a method of Proof-of-Personhood which is a legal mandate & as a user you need to submit government photo I.D such as a driver's license or passport. Anyone who has undergone a KYC like myself will be told that KYC is part of an anti-money laundering policy and is a legal mandate as an outcome of the infamous Vancouver Model & as a user once photo ID documentation has been KYC approved then you can put the shifter into first & get moving, but the question to ask is: is KYC a privacy risk? To answer the question, if anyone operates in this digital era, user privacy online is always a risk regardless of legal preventative measures, but, even outside the digital world, if you were to go in-store and make a debit card purchase at Home Depot for instance, that debit card transaction is a privacy risk, or if you have a loyalty store card & collect points for in-store purchases, that is a form of data collection & consumer data collection is shared with third parties & to keep consumer transactions private then cash transactions provide the solution as a secure payment method & the proposed introduction of CBDCs would completely eliminate consumer transaction privacy, as CBDCs aim to track consumer spending. So if privacy is a risk, why then would there now suddenly be any validity to the claim of Worldcoin's offer of being a verified I.D solution whilst protecting user privacy when digital privacy was at risk from the get-go?
Worldcoin Locations
Worldcoin Orb operators are independent contractors who provide assistance by scanning the retina of participants.
Worldcoin metallic Orbs can be located in 35 different worldwide cities including New York.
The problem in which lies a great amount of controversy & scrutinization is Worldcoin's focus of Airdrops on Africa & Asia, this is because global corporations requiring large amounts of user data in order for smooth function of their products, services & algorithms geo-target Africa & Asia due to weaker regulations & cheap data collection and due to the cheaper cost of living in comparison to Toronto for instance, in certain countries in Africa & Asia $20 worth of WLD tokens is seen as a huge incentive to stand in a long queue at a Worldcoin metallic Orb location in Africa & Asia, but Worldcoin's open shenanigans have been the collection of biometric data in Kenya where biometric data transfer is prohibited & Zimbabwe where banks are barred from dealing with cryptocurrency & this has been viewed as display of disrespect & disregard for the legalities in Kenya & Zimbabwe
Worldcoin Activities Banned in Kenya
Kenya has enacted a 1-year ban on Worldcoin's activities in Kenya until Worldcoin permits a security audit, permits the Kenyan government access to user biometric data, registers with Business Registration Services (BRS) & establish a local Worldcoin representative in Kenya & in my opinion the way things ultimately will play out globally is I think there will come a point where Worldcoin will eventually submit to the prerequisites of Kenyan government, but the regulators stance of scrutinization (specifically in the UK & France) is at least for now, but, the question is: will those regulators who scrutinize Worldcoin's activities right now at this point in time maintain their stance, or ultimately hop on the Worldcoin project bandwagon themselves? As we saw in the G20 Summit in New Delhi where African Union leaders were present, government leaders have their own interests at heart & do not have the interests of their citizens at heart, but, in fact betray the trust of citizens, so even though the Kenyan government have banned the Worldcoin project's activities in Kenya for a year, it appears that if Worldcoin meet the prerequisites laid out by the Kenyan government which in my opinion at some point they possibly will, then the Kenyan government have no issues with Worldcoin, because according to a report by Reuters, Worldcoin plans to allow governments & businesses to use their iris scanning & identity verification Orb technology as an effort to sign up more users.
