Worldcoin Launches ZK-Based Identity Solution

The Worldcoin project, a crypto platform created by Sam Altman (co-founder of OpenAI), has announced the launch of World ID, a digital identity solution based on zero-knowledge proofs.

The announcement also opens the project's clients to a waitlist for the software development kit (SDK) which will be made available to select developers. This marks the firm's initial venture and further commitment to providing privacy-first digital identity verification on the internet. According to Worldcoin, the solution will also be supporting use-cases for user anonymity, aside from being designed as a privacy-first implementation. Documentation for the project is already publicly available for review.

Introducing World ID, a new privacy-first digital identity that brings global proof of personhood to the internet.

Find out more and sign up for the SDK ⬇️https://t.co/jD7ztwbeGY

— Worldcoin (@worldcoin) March 14, 2023

Altman, who worked on Worldcoin alongside his other high-profile tech projects, is also well-known for his role as the former president of the startup incubator Y Combinator and as the co-founder and current CEO of OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research laboratory. Altman co-founded OpenAI alongside Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Mira Murati.

The project describes World ID as a sort of "global digital passport" which users may then store on their mobile device's local memory. On the outset, this means that users are provided with a way of proving their "humanness" and unique identity without the requirement of identifiable (and hence: unsecure) information such as phone numbers and addresses. These are all used for tracking in websites we often use, stored as cookies into a server's database. This implementation is similar to the introduction of ZK identity which Polygon unveiled last week.

Given the launch, World ID will be introduced as a new standard for zero-knowledge identity across the web. The firm has also initiated a waitlist for its World ID SDK, which will enable developers to integarate the identity verification system into their applications to screen out bots.

"Artificial intelligence is presenting new opportunities across all industries and World ID aims to bring global proof of personhood to the internet," shares Worldcoin.

The firm also went on to highlight the statistical conditions for creating such a solution (and perhaps more importantly, why it is necessary at a time such as ours): more than 50% of the global population lacks access to verifiable identification with a legal basis. Worldcoin's World ID initiative seeks to address this, and this writer feels that it's a great fit, especially given the advent of Web3, because it is a solution that moves forward from a decentralized approach.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.