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Do you have coins? No? Well, Worldcoin did.
tools for humanitythe team building Worldcoin, raised $115 million in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital.
The cryptocurrency-focused project was co-founded by open AI CEO Sam Altman with a three-part mission: create a global ID, a global currency, and an app that enables payments, purchases, and transfers using your token, along with other cryptocurrencies and traditional assets.
Worldcoin has faced some concerns from people concerned about privacy risks because it requires scanning the eyeballs of a billion people with a five-pound chromatic sphere called “The Orb” in exchange for their token.
“For good reason, people get concerned and sensitive when it comes to biometrics, particularly when you add a dose of crypto,” Spencer Bogart, a general partner at Blockchain Capital, wrote in a blog post. mail On Wednesday.
“However, what actually happens under the hood is that the orb takes an image of an iris and the device subsequently generates a unique encoding of the iris’s randomness (an ‘iris code’),” Bogart added. “By default, the original biometrics are immediately destroyed and the iris code is the only thing that comes out of the orb.”
While the public may be hesitant, investors are still diving into the project as it is one of the few crypto companies still receiving large sums of capital amid an ongoing bear market.
Other investors in the Series C round include a16z, Bain Capital Crypto, and Distributed Global. In March 2022, Worldcoin raised $100 million with a valuation of $3 billion.
In 2021, Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania told TechCrunch that the coin is part of a larger effort to drive a more unified and equitable global economy fueled by the Internet economy, something that cryptocurrencies have failed to achieve in their early years.
The latest increase will go towards bot detection, research and development and the expansion of its Worldcoin project and app. Worldcoin is currently in beta testing and has onboarded some two million users on five continents.
Bogart and Blockchain Capital believe that Worldcoin could become the biggest onramp to cryptocurrency and World App could become the most adopted cryptocurrency wallet. All this is to be determined.
This week on web3
Arrington Capital-backed group to acquire Celsius assets
Following bankruptcy proceedings, the assets of failed crypto lender Celsius Network are about to be acquired by a consortium called Fahrenheit. Behind this name, you will find a group of bidders led by the investment firm Arrington Capital. The other members of the consortium are crypto mining firm US Bitcoin Corp., Proof Group, Steven Kokinos, and Ravi Kaza.
Take a look at Wolf’s first cohort of Bitcoin-powered startups (TC+)
In Wolf’s Clothing (Wolf), a startup accelerator launched by asset management firm Stone Ridge, wants to bolster Bitcoin-centric applications and use cases. Their first cohort, Wolfpack 1, consisted of eight teams and 23 founders from 10 countries, and they presented their ideas on Wednesday during a demo day, covered exclusively by TechCrunch+.
Montenegro court annuls bail for Terraform founder Do Kwon
A higher court in Montenegro has overturned an earlier decision by a lower court that would have released Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon on bail. The ruling comes nearly two weeks after the Montenegrin Court of First Instance agreed to release Kwon and his former colleague Chang-joon Han on bail.
Mastercard sees “much promise” in blockchain technology if security and simplicity are prioritized (TC+)
While the web3 world has seen a significant influx of capital, innovation, and talent, more work is needed to ensure that traditional players, as well as new ones, can enter the ecosystem with confidence. “People look at cryptocurrency and see it as an investment, but there is a whole sector that is much more useful to financial industries in general,” Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard executive vice president and head of cryptocurrency and blockchain, said during a panel focused on blockchain. at the company’s North American Innovation Day event. “The technology itself is very promising.”
Solana Releases ChatGPT Plugin to Help Users Interact with Your Network (TC+)
As the artificial intelligence market continues to heat up, a number of crypto players big and small are taking the plunge. The Solana Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the Solana layer 1 blockchain, has officially integrated AI into its network with a ChatGPT plugin. -in developed by Solana Labs, the team exclusively told TechCrunch+. (Solana Labs is the team that creates blockchain products and tools.)
the last pod
for the past week episode, jaquelyn interviewed Sergei Nazarovco-founder of Chainlink, a protocol that provides an Oracle network to power smart contracts.
Chainlink is also known as a web3 service platform that connects people, companies and data with the web3 world. And for good reason: It has enabled over $7 trillion in transaction volume across DeFi, gaming, NFTs, and other major industries.
Before co-founding Chainlink, Nazarov co-founded four other companies, most recently SmartContract, which focused on smart contracts.
We discussed a number of things related to smart contracts, Oracle networks, cross-chain interoperability, and Nazarov’s long-term vision for Chainlink.
We also dive into:
- Unexpected use cases of smart contracts
- Cryptographic guarantees
- How traditional companies can tokenize assets
- AI and blockchain technology
- PICC updates
subscribe to Chain reaction in apple Podcast, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the latest episodes, and please leave us a review if you like what you hear!
follow the money
- Dispersion Capital is launched $40 million fund focused on decentralized infrastructure
- decentralized science startup LabDAO raises $3.6 million
- open fortress raises $3 million to create ‘frictionless’ crypto accounts for gamers
- Institutionally focused digital asset platform PYOR raises $4 million
- application automation platform fast lane raises $2.3 million
This list was compiled using information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reporting.
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Sam Altman’s Crypto Project Worldcoin Got More Coins in Latest $115 Million Rise by jacquelyn melinek originally posted on TechCrunch
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