CoinFund: Why We Invested in Worldcoin?
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CoinFund: Why We Invested in Worldcoin?
Proving real identity while simultaneously protecting privacy is a fundamentally transformative innovation.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Austin Barack
Compiled by: TechFlow
Blockchain technology has opened the door to entirely new applications, use cases, and forms of global coordination. Bitcoin launched in 2009 laid the foundation for today's Web3. Open to anyone, accessible through proof-of-work mining or purchase, Bitcoin introduced the world to digital, non-sovereign, censorship-resistant money. Ethereum, launched in 2015, enabled programmable blockchain interactions via smart contracts, ultimately giving rise to DeFi, NFTs, resource networks, stablecoins, payment apps, on-chain gaming, DAOs, and more.
Yet despite all these incredible innovations, two key elements are still needed to complete the puzzle: provable human uniqueness and a means of globally fair distribution of network ownership. In many ways, these two are deeply interconnected. This is why we're so captivated by Worldcoin and its founders' unique vision.
Worldcoin addresses one of the most fundamental challenges in decentralized technology—preventing Sybil attacks—while eliminating all negative externalities. CoinFund first invested in February 2021, becoming one of Worldcoin’s earliest supporters, and we remain convinced that the innovation behind the Worldcoin network will profoundly impact global digital coordination, financial inclusion, and access to the crypto economy for billions of people.
Worldcoin began with a simple question: How can you prove you are a unique human in a digital environment, while preserving anonymity and privacy? There are many reasons for asking this, but what truly catalyzed this need was the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence—and the growing challenge of distinguishing AI from humans. The answer quickly became clear: this is both a hardware and a network-level problem. A device was needed to onboard users (registering them into non-custodial wallets and distributing network assets) while ensuring each user could only register once—and it had to be 100% privacy-preserving. From this idea, Worldcoin developed from scratch an advanced hardware device capable of verifying human uniqueness through the only reliably unique mechanism—iris biometrics.
The Worldcoin Orb captures a grid of an individual’s unique iris patterns in under 30 seconds. Using neural networks, it converts the pattern into a hash value (an iris code), then permanently deletes the original biometric data (the image of the user’s iris). The iris code is not linked to any personal information of the user (nor to their wallet), and is used solely to prevent duplicate registrations, as re-registration would produce the same iris code. Through this novel onboarding mechanism, privacy-preserving proof of unique personhood is achieved.
Why Is Proof of Unique Personhood So Impactful?
In purely digital environments, if you can verify that a user:
1) is human and not a bot,
2) participates only once rather than through multiple wallets/accounts,
3) without requiring the user to share government IDs or other private identity information,
the scope of native digital interactions can expand exponentially. Below are some direct applications, among many others:
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“One person, one vote” in DAOs, instead of token-weighted voting. Proof of real personhood prevents Sybil attacks where users vote through multiple wallet addresses. Real-world outcome: Token supply enables fair democratic governance, no longer necessarily controlled or undermined by large holders in every case.
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Privacy-preserving verification of users on social media apps. This prevents spam account creation without requiring users to verify via phone numbers or other personally identifiable information. Obvious application: Eliminating bot accounts on Twitter.
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Fair airdrops. When crypto networks distribute governance tokens to early users, Sybil attacks and unfair airdrop farming can be prevented. Real-world outcome: More efficient user acquisition for networks, as they retain a higher proportion of genuine users.
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Efficient global distribution of value, unbound by national borders, while preserving user privacy (their identity proof is not tied to real-world identities or personal data).
For these use cases and many future ones, privacy preservation is a foundational innovation—one that deeply resonates with CoinFund, and which we believe is a critical factor worth supporting. While other similar solutions exist, we clearly see that Worldcoin’s hardware-based approach has the lowest error rate among them.
Globally Fair Distribution of Network Assets
With the Worldcoin Orb and World ID enabling privacy-preserving proof of unique personhood, fair global distribution of digital assets becomes truly feasible. Traditionally, crypto assets are accumulated either by purchasing them or through network participation. As a result, those who bought early or had more capital to buy larger amounts end up holding a disproportionately large share of network assets compared to later users. This dynamic discourages later adopters, who feel they’ve “missed out,” leading them to constantly chase the next early opportunity rather than engaging with the most useful networks.
With proof of personhood and the Orb as an onboarding mechanism, each Worldcoin user receives roughly equal amounts of WLD tokens regardless of when they register. This means every user is an “early participant,” and all users can have a similarly meaningful impact on network development and governance. Moreover, this doesn’t just apply to WLD—Worldcoin, as a platform, can also serve as a distribution network for other assets. With this fair launch model, free distribution of network governance tokens incentivizes user onboarding, and with World ID’s strong authentication capabilities, we believe Worldcoin has the potential to bring billions of users into crypto, unlocking financial inclusion and the benefits of global connectivity.
It’s been two and a half years since we first became excited about Worldcoin’s ambitious vision. While Worldcoin has already attracted over two million users (as of July 23, 2023, the number stands at 2,060,888 and growing), we feel this is just the beginning. The real-world utility of Worldcoin has the potential to onboard the billionth user and beyond into crypto—and we believe it will. Privacy-preserving proof of personhood, combined with globally fair distribution of network assets, represents a fundamentally transformative innovation. We can’t wait to see what comes next.
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