- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- Spain has moved to block Sam Altman’s cryptocurrency project Worldcoin, the latest blow to a venture that has raised controversy in multiple countries by collecting customers’ personal data using an eyeball-scanning “orb.”
- Worldcoin has registered 4 million users, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Investors poured roughly $250 million into the company, including venture capital groups Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and, prior to the collapse of his FTX empire, Sam Bankman-Fried.
- “I want to send a message to young people. I understand that it can be very tempting to get €70 or €80 that sorts you out for the weekend,” España Martí said, but “giving away personal data in exchange for these derisory amounts of money is a short, medium and long-term risk.”
- Sharing such biometric data, she said, opened people up to a variety of risks ranging from identity fraud to breaches of health privacy and discrimination.
You’re thinking of Mtgox, a Magic card trading website that reinvented itself as a Bitcoin exchange—and then disappeared with its users’ money.