Over 200,000 consumers have reportedly verified their World ID in Chile as demand for the privacy-preserving digital identity protocol continues to grow following the Worldcoin project launch in July.
In a country with approximately 19.5M residents, that’s “over 1% of the population.”
In order to help meet demand, project contributors at Tools for Humanity (TFH) have recently started operations in Vina del Mar and Concepcion. These locations are “in addition to established operations in the country’s capital of Santiago.”
The milestone in Chile comes amid “scaled up global engagement by the teams and companies contributing to Worldcoin and continued project growth in South America.”
During his recent fireside conversation on the Ethereum Argentina Mainnet Stage, Worldcoin project co-founder and CEO of Tools for Humanity Alex Blania spoke “about the country’s, and the region’s, positive response” to innovative projects like Worldcoin:
Blania said:
“People are much more sensitive and much more understanding of the fundamental principles of crypto. It’s a combination of having a very technologically advanced country in general and then also a crypto-forward country specifically, which makes it an explosive building ground for the next wave of innovation in this space.”
As covered last month, growing numbers of world governments are beginning to scrutinize the services provided by Worldcoin, which is described as a crypto-related initiative that’s co-founded by OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman that was officially launched in July of this year.
Nearly 2.3 million consumers throughout the world have reportedly signed up in order to have their irises scanned by Worldcoin‘s “orb” devices so that they can obtain an all-digital ID as well as “free” virtual currency.
Altman explained that its ID should enable clients to, among other features/options, confirm online that they’re actually human, which could be well-suited for a future environment that’s heavily influenced/supported by AI algorithms.
Despite these seemingly innovative technologies, Worldcoin has managed to draw considerable criticism from privacy advocates regarding its data collection process. The initiative’s developers have stated that the biometric data gets deleted or resides in an encrypted format, and that it’s focused on working cooperatively with regulatory authorities.
