Sam Altman’s Layer-2 Vision
Worldcoin’s Vision
The Worldcoin project is dedicated to creating the largest global identity and financial network to promote equal opportunities worldwide. Utilizing advanced biometric technology and blockchain infrastructure, the project aims to offer an unobstructed access and ownership infrastructure to enhance digital interactions that are currently not achievable on a global scale.
Worldcoin boasts three core products: World ID for global digital identity, WLD as a global digital cryptocurrency, and World App, a crypto wallet that carries and utilizes World ID and WLD. The expected key application areas for these products include:
— Human-machine recognition in the AI era: Through World ID, Worldcoin provides an inclusive, privacy-protecting solution for proof of personhood, aimed at filtering out the noise of the digital world.
— Ownership of digital currency: The World App wallet enables people to directly own and control digital assets, simplifying the usage and management of digital currencies.
— Governance innovation: With its one-person-one-vote verification mechanism, Worldcoin pioneers the possibility of governance based on personhood, expanding the governance design space for web3 and the internet.
— Incentive adjustments: World ID, as a fraud-prevention digital identity, aids in aligning incentives, fostering mutual benefits for consumers and companies.
— Fair distribution of resources: World ID helps reduce fraud in social welfare programs, ensuring fair resource distribution.
The Worldcoin project, by integrating biometric and blockchain technology, aims to provide a fairer, frictionless digital interaction experience for users worldwide. The project’s successful implementation has the potential to profoundly impact areas of digital identity verification, resource distribution, and governance, driving transformation in the global socio-economic landscape.
The Influence of Sam Altman, the Godfather of AI
Sam Altman is a visionary tech entrepreneur and investor known for his long-term perspective, commitment to the open-source ethos, outstanding technical proficiency, contributions across multiple fields, and strong leadership. Altman has served as the president of Y Combinator, later co-founded and became the CEO of OpenAI, and is also a supporter of Worldcoin. His work focuses on leveraging technology to solve global issues and propel humanity towards a better future.
— Long-termism: Altman’s long-termism is reflected in his vision for both OpenAI and Worldcoin, which are aimed at addressing enduring global challenges. OpenAI focuses on ensuring that AI development is oriented towards humanity’s greatest benefit, while Worldcoin explores leveraging blockchain technology for global identity verification and wealth distribution.
— Open Source Ethos: As a co-founder of OpenAI, Altman champions an open-source spirit, sharing research findings and technological progress with the global community, promoting the healthy development of AI. This openness encourages the dissemination of knowledge and rapid technological progress.
— Technological Expertise: Altman’s profound understanding and foresight in technology have earned him an esteemed reputation in the tech world. He displays deep insights into technical details and potential impacts, whether in AI research at OpenAI or blockchain applications at Worldcoin.
— Contributions to Various Domains: Altman has made significant contributions to multiple tech domains, especially in advocating for the safe and ethical development of AI. Through OpenAI, he has fostered broad discussions and research on AI risks. At the same time, the Worldcoin project explores the possibilities of utilizing blockchain technology to address global identity verification and wealth redistribution.
— Influence: Altman’s influence stems from his track record, grand vision, and positive outlook on the future. He attracts top scientists, engineers, and thought leaders worldwide to join his projects, united in tackling the challenges faced by humanity.
Possible Convergence of OpenAI and Worldcoin
From a long-termist perspective, OpenAI and Worldcoin share a common goal — using advanced technology to promote sustainable development in human society. Areas where they might intersect in the future include:
— Digital identity verification: OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technology could enhance Worldcoin’s biometric systems, providing more secure and accurate identity verification services.
— AI Governance: Worldcoin’s one-person-one-vote governance model could offer new ideas for AI governance, particularly in ensuring fair and transparent use of AI technology.
— The Global Economy: As AI technology advances, Worldcoin’s global wealth distribution mechanisms could serve as a tool to mitigate employment and income inequalities caused by AI.
In summary, through OpenAI and Worldcoin, Sam Altman has shown a unique perspective and profound influence on advancing technology, promoting global fairness, and exploring the potential of humanity’s future. As these two projects further develop, their intersection could provide new ideas and solutions for addressing global problems.
The Launch of World Chain
Worldcoin’s Explosive Growth
Since its launch, the Worldcoin project has shown significant growth momentum. Within just 268 days, the number of registered users exceeded 5 million, with an average of about 18,727 new users joining daily. This rate of growth demonstrates Worldcoin’s global appeal and potential for expansion. The project has successfully reached 120 countries/regions, showcasing its broad international influence.
With the deployment of the Orb devices in 37 countries/regions, and the manufacturing of 2,000 Orbs, Worldcoin has established a strong infrastructure in the physical world, further expanding its range of verified users. Additionally, nearly 50 million World App user wallet transactions indicate an active and growing user base.
The Worldcoin project has exhibited robust developmental momentum and widespread market acceptance. As the project continues to expand its technological and market base, it is expected to exert a greater influence in the fields of digital identity verification and global finance.
World Chain is ultimately a necessary path.
The launch of World Chain can be seen as an essential step in the development of the Worldcoin project, primarily based on its challenges experienced on Optimism:
Network Congestion and High Transaction Fees: As the Worldcoin user base rapidly grows, its activities on the Optimism mainnet have led to significant network congestion and high transaction fees. This not only impacts user experience but also limits further project expansion. World Chain addresses these issues by providing a network specifically designed for the Worldcoin ecosystem, which improves transaction efficiency and reduces costs.
Challenge of Bot Activities: The substantial automated trading and bot activities in existing blockchain networks have caused numerous issues, including resource wastage and network congestion. World Chain introduces World ID personality verification to prioritize verified human transactions, aiming to create a fairer and more efficient network environment.
Scalability and Sustainability: As the Worldcoin ecosystem continues to evolve and user demands increase, a network capable of supporting higher transaction volumes and faster confirmation times with better scalability is needed. World Chain’s design considers these needs, offering a sustainable foundation for the Worldcoin ecosystem through a dedicated network and integration with Ethereum L2.
Open Source and Community Governance: World Chain adheres to the open-source spirit and community governance, aligning with the core values of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. By involving the community in network governance, the development direction of the network can be ensured to meet user interests and needs.
Future Ecosystem Development: World Chain is not just a solution to current problems; it also aims to provide Worldcoin and its users with a richer and more diverse application ecosystem. By focusing on decentralized finance and identity applications practical for everyday life, World Chain hopes to attract more developers and users, promoting growth throughout the entire ecosystem.
The launch of World Chain is designed to address challenges encountered by Worldcoin on Optimism while also supporting its long-term vision and ecosystem expansion. By providing a more efficient, fair, and scalable network, World Chain opens new development paths for Worldcoin and its users, ensuring the project’s continuous development and achieving its goal of enhancing global opportunity equality.
Biometric Technology Revolution
The Significance of Building with OP Stack: World Chain opts to build on OP Stack based on a comprehensive evaluation of Optimism’s efficiency, cost-effectiveness, Ethereum compatibility, community support, and security.
Transaction Throughput and Cost-Effectiveness: Optimism can theoretically increase transaction speeds to thousands per second and reduce Gas costs by over 80% through Optimistic Rollups technology.
Compatibility with Ethereum: OP Stack provides an environment fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing existing smart contracts and DApps on Ethereum to seamlessly transition to Optimism.
Community and Ecosystem Support: The Optimism community includes thousands of developers and numerous deployed projects and partners.
Security: Although transactions are processed on L2 via Optimistic Rollups, all transactions are ultimately settled on the Ethereum main chain, inheriting the security of the Ethereum mainnet.
These features collectively justify World Chain’s choice of OP Stack over other blockchain solutions.
Biometric Technology Reshaping the Cryptographic Field
Worldchain, through its unique biometric technology and World ID system, is pioneering a new human-centered era in the cryptographic field. This new blockchain platform not only aims to provide a globally open network but also focuses on ensuring human users have priority over bots and automated scripts through a series of innovative measures. Key aspects of how Worldchain reshapes the cryptographic field through biometric technology include:
Human-Priority Network Access and Resource Allocation: By leveraging World ID’s personality proof, Worldchain ensures that verified human users have priority access to block space and transaction fees (GAS allowances). This design aims to reduce network congestion and resource wastage caused by bots and automated scripts, thereby improving network efficiency and user experience.
Promoting the Adoption of Decentralized Finance and Identity Applications: Worldchain’s deep integration with the Worldcoin protocol enables it to utilize the powerful features of World ID, providing developers with a platform to reach millions of real users globally. This not only accelerates the adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) and identity-based applications but also opens new pathways for practical applications in daily life.
In summary, through its innovative biometric technology and human-centered design principles, Worldchain is driving a new human-focused era in the cryptographic field. This not only provides a fairer and more efficient network environment for users but also opens doors for developers to a global user community, promoting the widespread adoption and development of cryptographic technologies and applications.
Unique Advantages of World Chain
World Chain’s unique advantages lie in its human-centered design principles, the application of biometric technology, deep integration with the Worldcoin protocol, and its emphasis on decentralized identity verification and community governance. These features make World Chain not only a Layer-2 solution that improves transaction efficiency and reduces costs but also an innovative platform that promotes the adoption of decentralized
Strategies to Address Network Congestion
Current Network Challenges
Recent congestion issues on the Solana network have become a hot topic in the crypto market, with bot activity identified as a primary culprit, a common cause of congestion on other blockchain networks as well.
High-Frequency Trading: Trading bots are often used for high-frequency trading, meaning they can initiate a large volume of transactions in a very short time. When many bots operate simultaneously, these high-frequency trades can quickly fill up block capacity, leading to network congestion.
Rise of DeFi: The rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms and other smart contract-based applications has increased bot activity. Bots are used to automate complex strategies such as liquidity mining, arbitrage, or automated lending. These involve frequent interactions with smart contracts, adding to the volume of transactions on the network.
Dust Attacks: In some cases, malicious actors might deliberately use bots to initiate a large number of meaningless transactions to cause network congestion. This type of network congestion attack aims to impact the performance of specific decentralized applications or profit by increasing transaction fees during times of network traffic, as experienced by the Solana network.
The Significance and Strategy of Prioritizing Humans with World ID
The role differentiation based on World ID is a core concept within the Worldcoin ecosystem, designed to verify users’ true identities through biometric technology, thereby providing customized services and privileges for different types of participants. Possible role differentiation based on World ID might include:
Verified Human Users: Users verified by the World ID system as real humans have priority access to network resources, such as priority block space and Gas allowances on World Chain. Transactions from these users are prioritized to enhance efficiency and reduce costs.
Unverified Users: Users who have not been verified through the World ID system or choose not to verify can access the network and use services but do not enjoy the priority in resource allocation and transaction processing that verified users do.
By differentiating roles through World ID, the Worldcoin ecosystem aims to establish a more equitable blockchain network environment.
World Chain’s strategy to prioritize human transactions addresses the prevalent congestion issues in current blockchain networks while enhancing the network’s usability and fairness. The core of this strategy lies in distinguishing human users from automated scripts (bots) through the World ID verification system, offering a range of incentives to verified human users, including but not limited to priority block space and transaction fee allowances. Here are the implications and implementation methods of this strategy:
Challenges and Opportunities: Anti-Bot Strategy and User Growth
Negative Impacts of the Anti-Bot Strategy
World Chain’s anti-bot strategy aims to enhance network efficiency, protect human users’ interests, and reduce malicious bot activity, but it may also bring some negative impacts or challenges:
Technical and Execution Challenges
Misidentification Issues: During the implementation of an anti-bot strategy, there could be misidentifications, where legitimate automated scripts or bot activities are wrongly identified as malicious, thus hindering these legitimate activities.
Circumvention Strategies: Malicious actors might develop more sophisticated bots to bypass identity verification mechanisms, potentially leading to an “arms race” of continually upgrading bot technology to counteract the latest anti-bot measures.
Potential Impact on Innovation and Efficiency
Limitation on Automated Tools: Automated tools and bots play significant roles in many blockchain applications, such as automated trading, liquidity provision, and smart contract operations. An overly strict anti-bot strategy might limit the use of these tools, affecting the innovation and efficiency of blockchain technology.
Increased User Threshold: Requiring users to undergo World ID verification, while enhancing network security, may also increase the complexity of user operations, posing a higher barrier to entry for new users.
Network Governance and Centralization Risks
Governance Participation Limitations: Limiting governance rights and priority access to network resources to those with verified identities could lead to reduced participation in network governance, especially globally, where users from different regions might be unable to participate equally due to verification barriers.
Increased Centralization Risks: Relying on a specific identity verification system, like World ID, might increase the network’s dependence on centralized identity verification systems, contrary to the decentralized principles advocated by blockchain technology.
In summary, although World Chain’s anti-bot strategy considers multiple aspects to improve the network environment and protect human users’ interests, it also requires careful balancing during implementation to avoid potential negative impacts, ensuring the network’s openness, innovation, and inclusiveness.
Sacrificing Short-Term Revenue
While World Chain’s implementation of the anti-bot strategy prioritizing transactions from World ID-verified human users is aimed at establishing a fairer and more efficient network environment in the long term, it indeed may impact the network’s revenue in the short term. Here are the main aspects showing how this strategy might sacrifice short-term revenue:
Reduced Transaction Fee Revenue
Reduced Transaction Volume: By limiting or reducing bot transactions, the total transaction volume on the network might decrease. Since bots can generate a large volume of transactions, especially in high-frequency trading strategies, these transactions increase transaction fees during network congestion, thereby increasing network revenue.
Lower Fees for Priority Transactions: To incentivize human users to participate and complete World ID verification, World Chain might offer lower transaction fee rates or other incentives for these transactions, directly reducing the fee revenue per transaction.
Impact on Potential Speculative Activities
Reduced Market Manipulation: Bots are often used in the cryptocurrency market to manipulate markets by creating false buying or selling pressure to influence prices. Limiting such bot activities might reduce this source of revenue.
Increased Investment and Development Costs
Increased Initial Costs: Developing and maintaining advanced anti-bot systems requires significant initial investment and ongoing operational costs. These costs might exceed the costs saved or direct revenue generated by implementing these systems in the short term.
Long-Termism Ultimately Prevails?
Although the implementation of World Chain’s anti-bot strategy might face some challenges and sacrifices in revenue in the short term, from a long-termist perspective, this strategy has significant potential advantages. Here are the long-term benefits that adopting this strategy might bring:
Enhanced Network Quality and User Experience: Significantly reducing network congestion, increasing transaction processing speed, and reducing congestion also mean that users can enjoy lower transaction fees, making participation in network activities more economical.
Enhanced Security and Trust: By identifying and limiting bot activities, the risk of the network suffering from malicious attacks is reduced, enhancing the overall security of the network.
Promotion of Fairness and Inclusivity: Ensuring human users’ rights: Ensuring that human users can fairly access and use network resources, preventing displacement by automated scripts and bots.
Encouragement of Responsible Use: The anti-bot strategy encourages users and developers to responsibly use network resources, promoting the long-term health and sustainable development of the network.
From a long-termist perspective, World Chain’s anti-bot strategy is not only a solution to current problems but also an investment in future sustainable development. By enhancing network quality, enhancing security and trust, promoting fairness and inclusiveness, and strengthening network governance, this strategy is expected to bring a broader user base, a stronger ecosystem, and more stable revenue sources to World Chain. Ultimately, this will demonstrate the value of long-termism in the blockchain field, ensuring that World Chain can stand out in a competitive market and achieve long-term success.
Regulatory Challenges and Data Privacy
1. Data Collection Challenges
The Worldcoin project, particularly through its practice of collecting biometric data (such as iris scans) to verify user identities via its World ID system, faces a range of regulatory challenges. These challenges primarily stem from increasing concerns over individual privacy protection and the strengthening of data protection regulations globally.
— Privacy Protection Regulations: Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU set strict limits on the collection and processing of personal data. Worldcoin needs to ensure its data collection and processing practices comply with these regulations.
— User Consent: Obtaining explicit consent from users before collecting biometric data is crucial. Worldcoin must ensure that users fully understand how their data is collected, stored, and used.
— Data Security: Protecting collected sensitive data from unauthorized access or leaks is another significant challenge. Any data breach incident could lead to severe legal consequences and reputation damage.
Emerging Lockdowns
Temporary lockdowns of Worldcoin in different countries reflect governments’ concerns about emerging technologies and data collection practices. These concerns mainly include:
—Data Privacy Concerns: National regulatory agencies might worry that the biometric data collected by Worldcoin could infringe on citizens’ privacy rights, especially if the processing and storage of these data are not entirely transparent or do not comply with local data protection regulations.
— Security Issues: For systems that store a large amount of sensitive biometric information, security becomes a primary concern. Any potential security vulnerabilities could lead to data being illegally accessed or stolen.
— Regulatory Adaptability: Given the global nature of the Worldcoin project, its operations must adapt to the legal and regulatory frameworks of different countries and regions. Regulatory differences across countries might lead to some regions taking lockdown measures against the project.
Sam Altman’s Countermeasures
Facing pressures from data privacy and regulatory scrutiny, Worldcoin and its founder Sam Altman have adopted the following measures to address these concerns:
- Enhanced Transparency: Increasing transparency about how user data are collected, used, and stored, including publishing detailed privacy policies and data processing agreements.
- Encryption and Security: Implementing advanced encryption technologies and security measures to protect stored data from unauthorized access and data breaches.
- Compliance Audits: Regularly conducting compliance audits to ensure that Worldcoin’s operations comply with data protection regulations across various countries and regions.
- User Authorization and Control: Ensuring that users have sufficient control over the use of their data, including providing clear consent options, and rights to access and delete their data.
- Proactive Communication and Collaboration: Actively communicating and collaborating with regulatory bodies to explain Worldcoin’s data collection and processing practices, demonstrating how it protects user privacy and complies with regulatory requirements.
Through these measures, Worldcoin aims to build trust with users and regulatory agencies, ensuring the smooth global development of its project while protecting user privacy and data security.
WLD Token: Market Performance and Social Impact
1.WLD Market Performance
One of the core philosophies of Worldcoin is to explore technology and economic models that can support a Universal Basic Income. The WLD token is viewed as a primary tool for this social experiment. Users located in a region where Worldcoin is authorized can start applying for Worldcoin Grants to receive free WLD tokens after their uniqueness is fully verified on the Orb. Currently, besides governance and providing Worldcoin Grants to World ID verified users, WLD does not have any other practical use, and Worldcoin Grants are likely to put selling pressure on its price.
The current motivations for investors to buy WLD tokens include:
- Faith in Sam Altman: The founder, Sam Altman, has significant influence worldwide, and his followers believe that holding WLD is the best way to participate in the growth of the WorldCoin project.
- Price Speculation: In a bull market for cryptocurrencies, high-profile crypto assets have substantial speculative potential, and WLD is recognized to meet this criterion.
- The Upcoming World Chain: Following the official announcement of World Chain, discussion of WLD in social media has been on the rise, and investors actually expect to enjoy the dividends of World Chain’s development by holding WLD.
From the performance of WLD’s price, the token has gone through three stages:
- Liquidity Accumulation: In the initial stages of World ID registration, a large influx of users led to the issuance of many Worldcoin Grants, which could have depressed WLD token prices. However, as discussions about WLD and its followers continued to increase, buying liquidity gradually strengthened. This phenomenon indicates growing market interest in the Worldcoin project and WLD token, gradually strengthening investor buying intentions, laying the foundation for a rebound in token price and increased market activity.
- OpenAI Board Controversy Hype: In December 2023, the OpenAI board suddenly announced the removal of Sam Altman from the board. This decision quickly became a global focal point, triggering widespread discussion and speculation. Rumors that Sam Altman might devote himself entirely to his Worldcoin project spread rapidly, sparking a 50% increase in WLD token prices in a single day. As Sam Altman returned to the OpenAI board, the token’s price also returned to its previous level. This event highlighted the market’s attention to Sam Altman’s role in the Worldcoin project.
-Crypto Bull Market Hype: In 204, the AI sector flourished with Nvidia’s stock price soaring, and the cryptocurrency market began to hype AI concept tokens. Due to Sam Altman’s unique role as CEO of OpenAI, the WLD token became a leader among AI concept tokens, with its price climbing steadily and continually reaching new historical highs. However, as Nvidia’s stock price and Bitcoin’s price corrected, the WLD token also experienced a downturn from its highs.
- A New Narrative?: Worldcoin announced the launch of Worldchain, a move that could add new upward momentum to the WLD token. Investors anticipate that the launch of Worldchain might bring more application scenarios and value-added opportunities to the WLD token, further enhancing its status and potential value in the cryptocurrency market.
Catalytic Effect of Worldchain
The Worldchain project, with its unique positioning and strategy, has the potential to generate a significant catalytic effect in the cryptocurrency market. Here are several key factors that together might drive this effect:
- Sam Altman’s Unique Influence
Sam Altman, as the CEO of OpenAI, is already a well-known figure in the tech and artificial intelligence industries. His involvement not only brings credibility and visibility to the Worldchain project but also helps attract the attention of investors, partners, and developers due to his extensive contacts and influence in the industry. Altman’s endorsement could enhance market confidence in Worldchain, fostering broader industry participation and innovation.
- Special Relationship Between Worldchain and OpenAI
The connection between Worldchain and OpenAI provides the project with a unique competitive advantage. This relationship may indicate that Worldchain will integrate advanced artificial intelligence technologies on its platform, offering new possibilities for cryptocurrency and blockchain applications. The prospect of such technological integration could inspire other projects to explore similar AI integrations, thus pushing the entire industry towards more advanced technological applications and solutions.
- Unique Anti-Bot Strategy of Worldchain
The anti-bot strategy proposed by Worldchain aims to ensure fair use and resource distribution of the network, a strategy that is relatively rare in the current cryptocurrency market. By effectively identifying and limiting malicious bot activities, Worldchain can provide a safer and more user-friendly environment.
As the project unfolds and develops further, Worldchain may become a key force in driving innovation in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.
Two Titans of the Crypto World: Sam Altman and Pavel Durov
Different Fields, Similarly Outstanding
Sam Altman and Pavel Durov are two influential figures in the tech world, each having achieved significant success in their respective fields. The following table compares some aspects of their common traits:
Although Sam Altman and Pavel Durov are active in different fields, they both exemplify pushing technological innovation, valuing user rights, and possessing a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Their work has not only had a profound impact on the tech industry but has also promoted social and cultural changes globally.
Revaluation of WLD through TON
With the launch of Worldchain, it is anticipated that the valuation logic of WLD tokens will undergo significant changes. Previously based on relatively vague valuation factors such as liquidity and project vision, it will shift towards a more concrete and explicit public chain token valuation model. This transition means that WLD’s value will more accurately reflect its actual application potential and network effects as public chain infrastructure, rather than being based merely on speculation or visionary expectations. In the cryptocurrency industry, the influence of founders is crucial to the success of projects. Therefore, by comparing Sam Altman-led WL and Pavel Durov-led TON, the potential for WLD’s price increase can be more clearly assessed.
Given that Worldchain has not officially launched and lacks specific data on network operation, comparing TON with WLD from the perspective of network performance and operational data has its limitations. Based on existing price data comparisons, a simple valuation of WLD can be conducted.
Assuming that over the next year, the circulating supply increases to 15%, which means 1.5 billion tokens are in circulation, and assuming that WorldChain has been launched:
- Optimistic scenario for WorldChain’s development speed:
At 50% of TON’s current market capitalization, the theoretical price for WLD would be $10.
- Neutral scenario for WorldChain’s development speed:
At 25% of TON’s current market capitalization, the theoretical price for WLD would be $5.
- Pessimistic scenario for WorldChain’s development speed:
At 10% of TON’s current market capitalization, the theoretical price for WLD would be $2.
With the price having already retraced 60% from its peak, the risk of further declines is relatively low. However, as WLD tokens begin to unlock in July 2024, the momentum for price increases may gradually weaken.
Despite high expectations from market investors for Worldchain, its price still faces specific challenges, especially with the large number of tokens unlocking in July this year. The increased monthly circulation may lead to selling pressure. Only when the cryptocurrency market re-enters a bull market phase might the investment value of WLD be fully realized.
Summary
The Worldcoin project aims to reshape its long-term development vision through its Layer-2 network, WorldChain. However, whether WorldChain can be successfully deployed and achieve its set goals remains to be seen. The specific impact of WorldChain on the WLD token price has not yet become apparent. As the project progresses and more details are disclosed, the market will be able to more accurately assess the potential contributions of WorldChain to the entire Worldcoin ecosystem and its token value.
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