The Bet on Iris: How Worldcoin Attempts to Restructure Digital Trust and Why It Sparks Controversy Globally

Original Title: Worldcoin's New Trust Economy

Original author: Thejaswini M A, Buttercup Network

Original compilation: Luke, Mars Finance

Worldcoin's “New Trust Economy”

Recently, I've been thinking about trust. Not the abstract philosophical concept, but the very real trust we encounter in everyday life. For example, when you pick up the phone, you might doubt whether the voice of your mom you hear is a deepfake generated by some AI, trying to scam your money. Or when you browse Twitter, you can't really tell which accounts are real human beings and which are carefully designed bots inflating their numbers.

How do you know I am human?

At this moment, as you read this article, you naturally assume that these words are written by a real person. But what if I told you that more than half of the content you interact with online is no longer generated by humans? Is 51% of internet traffic made up of bots? When you're arguing with someone on Twitter, is there a 50% chance you're shouting at an algorithm?

Maybe I'm thinking too much, but the internet, which was originally intended to connect humans, has now been polluted by robots to such an extent that “being human” has become a feature rather than a default state. Sam Altman is well aware of this. He is both the creator of the AI that is causing this problem and is also building the infrastructure he believes can solve it.

The scale and depth of the threat of forgery.

I'm not joking, the issue of bots is real and massive. According to the 2025 Imperva Bad Bot Report, bots currently account for 51% of all web traffic. This is the first time in a decade that automated traffic has surpassed human-generated activity. Malicious bots alone account for 37% of all internet traffic.

On the blockchain, this issue is even more complex. Up to 80% of transactions are automated, and autonomous AI agents (not just human-guided trading bots) now dominate this automated activity, making their own decisions to buy, sell, and execute trades. During peak network congestion, bot-driven trading can push Gas fees to hundreds of dollars per transaction, effectively excluding human users.

Deepfake fraud cases surged by 1,740% in North America between 2022 and 2023. In just the first quarter of 2025, economic losses caused by AI-driven fraud exceeded $200 million. The number of deepfake documents is expected to explode from 500,000 in 2023 to 8 million by 2025.

Your voice, your appearance, your writing style, all of this can be cloned and weaponized. The verification systems we once trusted? CAPTCHA codes? Facial recognition? They are failing. ChatGPT solves your “I am not a robot” checks much faster than you or I.

Introducing “Orb”: The Birth of World ID

A silver sphere the size of a basketball. It looks like a prop from a science fiction movie. You lean forward, staring into its lens, and it scans your iris. The pattern of your eyes – unique like a fingerprint but harder to forge – is converted into a cryptographic hash value. They promise that the original image will be deleted immediately.

Congratulations. You are now a verified human. You have obtained a World ID.

This is another important project by Sam Altman: Worldcoin. It has verified 16.9 million people in 160 countries/regions around the world. World App has 34 million users. This technology is indeed impressive. Its False Match Rate is lower than 10−16, which means it can distinguish billions of people with near-perfect accuracy.

Wall Street's “Iris Gold Rush”

WLD token, which was supposed to become the currency of this “verified human economy”, has now fallen 89% from its historical high. After reaching $11.74 in March 2024, the current trading price is 1.24, but it still maintains a market capitalization of $2.65 billion, ranking 59th on CoinGecko. A monthly trading volume of $7.92 billion shows significant market activity.

So, why has everyone suddenly gotten excited again?

The reason is Eightco Holdings. This company was a management company for e-commerce inventory until yesterday. No one cared about it. Its stock trading price was $1.45. Then, they announced a $250 million purchase of Worldcoin. Their entire strategy is now centered around accumulating WLD tokens and implicitly gaining access to verified human identities.

The stock soared to $45.08, skyrocketing 3,000% in a single trading day on September 8.

BitMine Immersion Technologies, the largest corporate holder of Ethereum, has immediately invested $20 million to purchase 13.7 million shares. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities has joined as chairman, stating that this is “the next step in the AI revolution around authentication.”

If you have been following the buzz around Digital Asset Treasury Company (DATCO), this script will be very familiar.

Eightco is betting that the same scenario will occur with verified human identities. As AI becomes indistinguishable from humans, proof-of-personhood becomes a key digital asset. They accumulate WLD tokens. Stocks are traded at a premium. They issue more shares. They buy more tokens. This is the “verified human” financial strategy.

However, there is a fundamental difference here. Bitcoin is digital gold - inert, unconfiscatable, and limited. Worldcoin is digital identity, which is personal, revocable, and tied to your eyeball.

One is a commodity. The other is… you.

When you closely examine this transaction by Eightco, the regulators' suspicions seem more justified. A 3000% surge is speculative frenzy, not organic adoption of the “proof of personality” infrastructure.

If WLD continues to decline, the entire argument of Eightco will collapse. Countries are banning Worldcoin, and if this trend continues, these tokens will become worthless. If the stock premiums evaporate like those of dozens of small crypto finance companies, they will not be able to raise more funds without massively diluting their equity.

Eightco should manage a Worldcoin treasury while continuing to operate its e-commerce inventory business. This dual task rarely works out well. In the end, you'll end up doing both poorly.

Why do global regulators collectively oppose

Kenya does not want Worldcoin. Spain doesn't want it either. Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, Portugal, Indonesia, and Colombia also do not want it. The regulatory backlash is swift and aggressive, but why?

Kenya: Ruled illegal, ordered the deletion of all biometric data, and pointed out that paying people with cryptocurrency is coercive consent.

Spain: It is prohibited to collect data from minors without transparency or an exit mechanism.

Brazil: Comprehensive ban, daily fine of $8,800. Cryptocurrency compensation undermines valid consent.

Germany: Requires the deletion of data collected “without sufficient legal basis” in accordance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

Hong Kong: Banned due to excessive surveillance, especially considering the plan to retain iris images for up to ten years.

Portugal: Suspended for 90 days due to insufficient information and consent issues.

Indonesia: Suspended due to suspicious activities and registration violations.

Colombia: Under investigation, citizens are warned to avoid participation.

Regulators see a company paying people, especially in developing countries, with tokens in exchange for scanning their irises. They see permanent biometric data being collected without a sound consent framework. They see a system that could become a surveillance tool in the wrong hands.

Some objections miss the technical nuances. Germany's demand to “delete” iris codes makes no sense in a cryptographic sense. These codes are mathematical hash values, not recoverable biometric data. Deleting them does not “restore” your iris pattern.

But what about the opposition in Kenya? This one is harder to dismiss. When you offer WLD tokens, which are worth real money, to someone who earns $2 a day, is that “free consent”? Or is it economic coercion dressed in the guise of innovation?

My position: Support “diverse identities”

At this point, I support Vitalik.

Vitalik Buterin has always been one of the most thoughtful critics of biometric “personhood proof” systems. He acknowledges that these systems address real issues exacerbated by the increasing capabilities of AI, but he raises key concerns about their implementation.

His main concern is that the “one person one ID” system poses a risk to pseudonymity and exposes users to coercion. He wrote: “In the real world, pseudonymity often requires having multiple accounts. If it is widely known that everyone has only one identity, you may be forced to disclose it.”

Vitalik proposed a solution he calls “pluralistic identity”: an overlapping, competitive identity system ecosystem, rather than a single dominant solution. This can be explicit, such as verification based on social graphs, where trust comes from your community; or implicit, like the current patchwork systems of passports, social logins, and other credentials.

His argument resonates because it acknowledges the core tensions of the Worldcoin project. Yes, we need a way to verify humanness. Yes, the dominance of robots and AI-generated fraud are real issues. But solutions should not create new avenues for surveillance, coercion, and control.

The requirements of “pearl” have led to inevitable centralization. Despite discussions about all the decentralized and privacy-protecting cryptographic technologies, you still need to personally access a proprietary hardware device controlled by a single company. This is a bottleneck. It is a honeypot for sensitive data, even if it is encrypted and anonymized.

The collective opposition of global regulators is a legitimate response to the risks posed by centralizing biometric identity infrastructure in the hands of a private company, regardless of its intentions.

The choice is in our hands.

Yes, proof of personhood is crucial. The robot problem is real and is worsening. However, the universal biometric scanning and centralized hardware approach adopted by Worldcoin is not the only solution and may not be the best one.

We need multiple competitive systems: a combination of social proof, reputation systems, economic stakes, and identity verification, community trust networks, as well as decentralized identifiers that do not require dedicated hardware. A chaotic, diversified approach that resists being captured by any single entity.

The risk of Worldcoin is not that it will fail. The risk is that it becomes too successful and too dominant, and we wake up to find that accessing basic digital services requires us to hand over our biometric data to a corporate identity layer. Even if it solves the robot problem, that is not the future I want.

The current attention and capital flowing into Worldcoin, the trading of Eightco, and the support from institutions all reflect a genuine demand for digital authenticity solutions. However, the demand for solutions does not mean that this particular solution is the right one.

We are at a crossroads. One path leads to a universal biometric identity controlled by a few companies. The other path leads to a diverse, user-controlled system that preserves privacy while enabling verification. The choice we make now will shape the digital identity for decades to come.

I bet on diversification. I bet on multiple competitive approaches. I bet that the chaos of diversified systems will triumph over the efficiency of centralized control, and it has every time.

Because once you give up your iris scan, you can never get it back. In a world filled with AI agents and synthetic media, the one thing you cannot afford to lose is control over proof of who you are.

That's it for today. See you next week.

Before this… stay calm and do your own research (DYOR).