Flinty hype and an explosive start: Worldcoin - ChatGPT founder Sam Altman's crypto baby is off to a hard start. What can we expect in the coming days?

Launched today and immediately rose 50% (meanwhile 30%). Worldcoin confirms its status in the market as one of the most hyped crypto projects of recent months. But how sustainable will the growth be?

50% in the first afternoon

At noon Dutch time, Worldcoin launched on Binance. Starting price: US$1.60. High point the same afternoon: US$3.60. Current level: 2.20 US dollars (as of 5:30 p.m., July 24, 2023). In the coming days, many parties will add the coin, including Coinbase. The exchange helped fund the project in its first round in 2022. Andreessen Horowitz, the world's largest crypto VC, also invested then - in a second round as much as US$100 million with a valuation of US$3 billion.

Worldcoin's total amount in circulation is 10 billion tokens. Its market capitalization is currently said to be nearly $25 billion, almost as much as Ripple. At launch, only 143 million of the tokens will be distributed. Of those, 100 million will go to market makers outside the U.S. (the project is not accessible there due to regulations) and 43 million to users.

A total of 75 percent of the tokens are for the community, 13.5 for investors in the Tools of Humanity project, 9.8 for the development team and 1.7 as reserves. Tokens from institutional investors and the team are locked in and will be marketed after the first year.

A wild vision - but what's behind it?

Worldcoin is also associated with an app of the same name. It runs on Optimism, a Layer2 solution of Ethereum. The vision sounds great. Paying with crypto - without fees. A digital identity card - without personal data. And even: receiving an unconditional basic income. These are the ambitions of Worldcoin. ChatGPT founder Sam Altman, among others, is behind the project. Users can claim one Worldcoin per week. For the first registration, one gets 25 Worldcoins.

The catch: to use the services, users must have their iris scanned. A hash is generated from their pattern, which serves as an ID card. Stations for such a scan are scattered around the world, including in Berlin. So people who value privacy have been warned and had better give Worldcoin a break.