---
title: "Startup That Exchanges Crypto for Eyeball Scans Descends Into Chaos"
description: "A crypto startup promising users $20 worth of its Worldcoin cryptocurrency hasn't actually paid anything out despite claiming to help alleviate poverty."
date: "2022-04-06"
modified: "2022-04-06"
authors:
  - name: "Lonnie Lee Hood"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/ahood"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/crypto-eyeball-scan"
categories:
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "ai"
  - "crypto"
  - "facial recognition"
  - "the digest"
---

# Startup That Exchanges Crypto for Eyeball Scans Descends Into Chaos

![A crypto startup promising users $20 worth of its Worldcoin cryptocurrency hasn't actually paid anything out despite claiming to help alleviate poverty.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/crypto-eyeball-scan.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Worldcoin\</em\>*

## All-Seeing Orb

As if [things in the crypto space weren't already weird](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/hacker-bored-ape-nft-checkmark>) enough, [*BuzzFeed News* reported yesterday](<https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-crypto-eyeball-scanning-orb-problems?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc>) that a startup promising users $20 worth of its crypto hasn't actually paid anything out, or even completely launched, nearly a year [after its launch](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/startup-paying-scan-eyeballs>).

People across Africa were offered the Worldcoin payment at mall booths where employees would use a spherical silver "orb" to scan their retinas, with operators sometimes claiming the $20 would appreciate by at least 500 percent in value. The goal was apparently to provide digital money to everyone in the world — but also, critics charge, with indiscriminately collecting biometric data for poorly-defined purposes.

"They don’t care what’s going to happen to you as an individual," an Orb operator told *BuzzFeed* in an interview. "What they care about is what’s happening to their numbers, what’s happening to their Orbs."

One Worldcoin customer who scanned his eyes at a mall was so angry he texted *BuzzFeed* reporters back thinking they were actually Worldcoin staff.

"You are thieves," the man told the pub. "They robbed me of my money."

## Look Away

There's a very long history of companies and governments, like Worldcoin, taking advantage of communities of color around the globe. Finger printing was [developed in colonial India by the British](<http://manchesterhistorian.com/2021/from-colonial-subject-to-criminals-exploring-why-forensic-fingerprinting-developed-in-colonial-india-and-its-subsequent-transfer-to-victorian-britain-by-hannah-teeger/>), who sought more control. During the War on Terror, the US lured [residents in Iraq under false pretenses to gather their DNA](<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-cia-fake-vaccination-campaign-endangers-us-all/>). Worldcoin follows in those footsteps by collecting sensitive personal and medical information from people in low-income countries for chump change — and, so far, without even providing the meagre promised payout.

There's also the slight problem that in some countries Worldcoin sent its Orbs to, according to *BuzzFeed*, it's illegal to export biometrics data. Others don't even allow crypto transactions at all.

It's unlikely Worldcoin is going to help anyone at all — unless you count the leaders [lining their pockets with investment dollars](<https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/03/22/worldcoin-to-raise-100m-at-3b-token-valuation-report/#:~:text=Crypto%20startup%20Worldcoin%20is%20raising,based%20Worldcoin%2C%20and%20Khosla%20Ventures.>).

**More on crypto calamities:** [*They've Now Mined Almost All The Bitcoin That Will Ever Exist*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/mined-almost-all-bitcoin-exist>)