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Edward Snowden Slams Cryptocurrency That Scans People's Eyeballs

Sun, 10/24/2021 - 10:38
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Alex Dovbnya
Edward Snowden wants you to be highly skeptical of the ominous cryptocurrency that wants to scan your eyeballs
Edward Snowden Slams Cryptocurrency That Scans People's Eyeballs
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Cybersecurity expert Edward Snowden, who rose to fame after exposing a National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program, has picked holes in Worldcoin, the cryptocurrency co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.  

The renowned whistleblower slammed the project for creating a global hash database of people’s iris scans, arguing that merely deleting the scans won’t solve the problem.

Snowden urges his followers not to use their biometric data for anything, adding that the human body is not “a ticket punch.”

The distribution model of the much-hyped cryptocurrency is based on scanning people’s eyeballs with the help of a chromatic sphere dubbed “The Orb.” The pilot involves 30 such orbs in countries around the globe. 130,000 people have so far taken part in the trial.       

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The WorldCoin project, which is backed by venture capital heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz and other prominent investors, drew the ire of privacy-conscious members of the cryptocurrency.

The Bitcoin community criticized VCs for pouring money into “a creepy orb” instead of focusing on building out the ecosystem of the largest cryptocurrency:    

WorldCoin is based on Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain. Co-founder Alex Blania told TechCrunch that Bitcoin is not scalable enough:

Bitcoin isn’t scalable to billions of people.

Altman defended the social experiment after Snowden’s comments, asserting that users’ transactions will be cryptographically decoupled from the hash.

The controversial WorldCoin cryptocurrency is rumored to be launched in early 2022 as an ERC20 token.

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About the author

Alex Dovbnya (aka AlexMorris) is a cryptocurrency expert, trader and journalist with extensive experience of covering everything related to the burgeoning industry — from price analysis to Blockchain disruption. Alex authored more than 1,000 stories for U.Today, CryptoComes and other fintech media outlets. He’s particularly interested in regulatory trends around the globe that are shaping the future of digital assets, can be contacted at alex.dovbnya@u.today.