| Worldcoin — the long-awaited eyeball-scanning crypto project of artificial intelligence entrepreneur Sam Altman — finally launched this week after three years in development. Already, there are takeaways. The venture, a project developed by ChatGPT creator Altman's Tools for Humanity, is setting up "orb" devices around the globe to scan people's irises and provide them with a blockchain-based digital identity card in return. To incentivize adoption, willing subjects also receive a few Worldcoin tokens as payment for taking part — except in the US, where it's not available owing to the regulatory scrutiny that has cropped up around these kinds of offerings. Worldcoin's thinking is that in a world where AI and robots are becoming better at faking real humans, a trustless digital identity is the only thing that can prove you're really you. And the tokens aren't meant solely as a handout — at some point, like other crypto coins, they might also give users a say in how the company is run or evolve into a globally-adopted currency. So far, the WLD token is proving to be a useful tool only for speculators. It more than doubled in value after its launch Monday, then fell as much as 90% a day later. The project is also facing questions from the UK's data regulator, which said in an emailed statement that users need to be able to withdraw their consent "without detriment" — something that's pretty hard to do when data is stored on blockchain, a technology famous for not allowing information to be deleted. No wonder the likes of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin are raising further questions. Worldcoin is also proving to be a cautionary tale for fund-hungry startups, particularly when it comes to effective due diligence of potential investors. Tools for Humanity's earliest backers in June 2021 included FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried and crypto fund Three Arrows Capital — two sources that have since put their companies into bankruptcy, while the former faces additional fraud charges. That left TfH in a pickle, given that each of those backers was due to receive an allocated amount of WLD based on their investment once the token went live. For all we know, it may have tried to buy out the stakes — a route that was taken by another SBF-backed entity, media company Semafor. Or it may have gone ahead with awarding the tokens to the corresponding bankruptcy estates. When asked for comment on what it decided to do, Worldcoin didn't respond. Having raised more than $500 million to date, the project may have been reasonably capitalized to absorb any costs from this extra layer of unexpected bureaucracy. But smaller startups wouldn't be so lucky, showing how in today's crypto world, it's not just the venture capitalists that should be checking up on the other side. With risk in crypto now a two-way street (though in reality, it always was), the funding landscape for startups continues to dwindle. And if even the superstars can't launch without incident, what does that say for the rest of them? | 
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