Grifters reportedly scammed Worldcoin out of almost $700,000 in crypto
Worldcoin had an identity problem.
As the eyeball-scanning business dealt with the aftermath of a global regulatory crackdown, a group of scammers in Berlin was reportedly hard at work fleecing the company out of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of its native crypto token.
Sam Altman’s crypto-adjacent company sold itself on its so-called proof of personhood technology. The idea: in an age of bots and AI, we’d need a digital way to prove we’re actually flesh and bones. Enter Worldcoin’s orb, a shiny metallic device that’d scan users’ eyes in an effort to verify that there was a real person attached.
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To incentivize signups (and as part of a now less-frequently mentioned universal basic income pitch), Worldcoin gave its native crypto token to users for getting scanned. The token, WLD, hit a high of more than $11 in March (and the company was giving out 10 WLD tokens on signup) — and that’s reportedly when the scammers struck.
According to reporting from DL News, a group of apparent Chechen nationals paid refugees, the unhoused, and people experiencing addiction to sign up for Worldcoin in Berlin and then fork over their WLD tokens.
DL News said the group likely made just shy of $700,000 worth of WLD tokens with the scheme.
Sam Altman’s crypto-adjacent company sold itself on its so-called proof of personhood technology. The idea: in an age of bots and AI, we’d need a digital way to prove we’re actually flesh and bones. Enter Worldcoin’s orb, a shiny metallic device that’d scan users’ eyes in an effort to verify that there was a real person attached.
To incentivize signups (and as part of a now less-frequently mentioned universal basic income pitch), Worldcoin gave its native crypto token to users for getting scanned. The token, WLD, hit a high of more than $11 in March (and the company was giving out 10 WLD tokens on signup) — and that’s reportedly when the scammers struck.
According to reporting from DL News, a group of apparent Chechen nationals paid refugees, the unhoused, and people experiencing addiction to sign up for Worldcoin in Berlin and then fork over their WLD tokens.
DL News said the group likely made just shy of $700,000 worth of WLD tokens with the scheme.
