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Alternative Assets  + Private Equity  + VC  | 
OpenAI CEO Altman Nears $100M for Iris-Scanning Crypto

OpenAI CEO Altman Nears $100M for Worldcoin Crypto Startup

Sam Altman, the well-known CEO of OpenAI, the firm that introduced ChatGPT to the world, is apparently on the verge of securing $100 million in funding for his idea to use iris-scanning technology to establish Worldcoin, a safe worldwide cryptocurrency.

The Financial Times reported that the Worldcoin team has created a strategy to address two issues that have arisen as artificial intelligence has become more sophisticated: telling humans apart from robots and offering some form of universal basic income to make up for job losses brought on by AI.

According to the company’s website, its method uses an orb that uses iris biometrics to build a person’s unique identification and produce a digital World ID that can be used anonymously in many commonplace applications without disclosing the users identify. The objective is to develop a system that offers universal basic income in the form of free global money.

Worldcoin has secured new funding from both new and existing investors, including Khosla Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman. A previous token sale valued the total supply of the company’s tokens at $3 billion, according to the tech-focused publication The Information.

The cryptocurrency industry has had a challenging year, with several crypto firms failing and the prices of many tokens dropping. The demise of FTX, which was sponsored by the venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, and Thoma Bravo, hastened the decrease in token values and led numerous blue-chip funds to scale back their sector bets.

Amid these challenges, Worldcoin’s fundraising success is seen as a positive development for the sector.

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About Joe Palmisano

Joe Palmisano is Editorial Director for Connect Money, where he brings nearly three decades experience of market insights as a financial journalist, analyst and senior portfolio manager for leading financial publications, advisory firms, and hedge funds. In his role as Editorial Director, Joe is responsible for the selection of content and creation of daily business news covering the financial markets, including Alternative Assets, Direct Investment and Financial Advisory services. Before joining Connect Money, Joe was a financial journalist for the Wall Street Journal, regularly publishing feature stories and trend pieces on the foreign exchange, global fixed income and equity markets. Joe parlayed his experience as a financial journalist into roles as a Senior Research Analyst and Portfolio Manager, writing daily and weekly market analysis and managing a FX and US equity portfolio. Joe was also a contributing writer for industry magazines and publications, including SFO Magazine and the CMT Association. Joe earned a B.S.B.A. in Finance from The American University. He holds the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation and is a member of the CFA Institute.