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Welcome back to A chain reaction.
Do you have a coin? no? Well, Worldcoin is.
Tools for Humanity, the team building Worldcoin, has raised $115 million in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital.
The crypto-focused project was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman with a three-part mission: to create a global ID, a global currency, and an app that allows payments, purchases, and transfers using its token — alongside other cryptocurrencies and traditional assets.
Worldcoin has faced some concerns from people worried about privacy risks because it requires scanning the eyeballs of a billion people with a five-pound chromatic orb called “The Orb” in exchange for its token.
“With good reason, people are concerned and sensitive when it comes to biometrics — especially when you throw in a dose of crypto,” Spencer Bogart, general partner at Blockchain Capital, wrote Wednesday.
“But what’s actually happening under the hood is that the bullet takes an image of the iris and the device then generates a unique encoding of the randomness of the iris (the ‘iris code’),” added Bogart. “By default, the original biometric is immediately destroyed and the iris code is the only thing that leaves 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 hefty sums of capital in the midst of a persistent bear market.
Other investors in the Series C round include a16z, Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global. In March 2022, Worldcoin raised $100 million at a valuation of $3 billion.
In 2021, Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania told Root Devices that the currency is part of a larger effort to promote a more unified and fair global economy powered by the internet economy, something that cryptocurrencies notably failed to do in their first few years.
The latest increase will be dedicated to bot detection, research and development, and expansion of the Worldcoin project and application. Worldcoin is currently in beta testing and has onboarded approximately two million users across five continents.
Bogart and Blockchain Capital believe that Worldcoin could become the biggest gateway to cryptocurrencies, and the World App could become the most widely used crypto wallet. All this is not clear yet.
This week in web3
The Arrington Capital-backed group will 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 providers led by the investment company Arrington Capital. Other members of the consortium include crypto mining company US Bitcoin Corp., Proof Group, Steven Kokinos and Ravi Kaza.
Check out Wolf’s first cohort of Bitcoin-powered startups (TC+)
And Wolf’s Clothing (Wolf), a startup accelerator launched by wealth management firm Stone Ridge, aims to boost Bitcoin-centric applications and use cases. Its first cohort, Wolfpack 1, consisted of eight teams and 23 founders from 10 countries, and they pitched their ideas Wednesday during a pitch day covered exclusively by Root Devices+.
The Montenegrin court annulled the bail of Terraform founder Do Kwon
The High Court of Montenegro overturned an earlier lower court decision that would have released Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon on bail. The ruling came nearly two weeks after the Montenegrin Basic Court agreed to release detained Kwon and his former colleague Chang-joon Han on bail.
Mastercard sees ‘a lot of 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 confidently enter the ecosystem. “People look at cryptocurrencies and think of them as an investment, but there’s a whole sector that’s much more useful to the financial industry as a whole,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president and head of cryptocurrency and blockchain, during the panel. focused on blockchain. at the company’s North America Innovation Day event. “The technology itself holds great promise.”
Solana launches ChatGPT plugin to help users interact with its network (TC+)
As the AI market continues to heat up, many 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 the ChatGPT plugin. -and developed by Solana Labs, the team exclusively told Root Devices+. (Solana Labs are the products and tools to create a blockchain team.)
The latest sub
For last week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Sergey Nazarovco-founder of Chainlink, the protocol that provides the Oracle network to power smart contracts.
Chainlink is also known as the web3 services platform that connects people, businesses and data to 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 many things related to smart contracts, Oracle networks, cross-chain interoperability, and Nazarov’s long-term vision for Chainlink.
We also delved into:
- Unexpected use cases of smart contracts
- Cryptographic Guarantees
- How traditional companies can tokenize assets
- AI and blockchain technology
- CCIP updates
Subscribe to A chain reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite sub 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 launches $40 million fund focused on decentralized infrastructure
- Decentralized science startup LabDAO raises $3.6 million
- Openfort Raises $3M to Create Frictionless Crypto Accounts for Players
- Institutional-focused digital asset platform PYOR raises $4 million
- App automation platform Fastlane raises $2.3 million
This list was compiled using data from Messari and Root Devices’s own reporting.
To get Root Devices’s roundup of the biggest and most important cryptocurrency stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12pm PT, subscribe here.
rootdevices.com/2023/05/25/sam-altmans-crypto-project-worldcoin-got-more-coin-in-latest-115m-raise/