On April 6, Sam Altman launched his ambitious “worldcoin” cryptocurrency project. Just a month later, the project is already dying.
What is worldcoin? Described as the “first open-source, distributed, decentralized global financial network,” Altman claimed that worldcoin would revolutionize global finance by allowing everyone to easily transact in digital money.
Unfortunately, it’s not looking good. After an initial surge of interest, worldcoin quickly fizzled out. The price was incredibly unstable, and many of the users who had started investing in the coin have now abandoned it.
Part of the problem is that worldcoin was not well-designed. The coin was initially declared to be “open source”, but very few people have access to the source code. Furthermore, the way it was developed and released was chaotic, with new features being added to the coin without much thought.
The other issue has been the complete lack of marketing for worldcoin. Altman and his team have done very little to promote the coin, instead expecting it to gain popularity solely through word-of-mouth.
Finally, the lack of a clear use case for worldcoin has been deadly for the project. It’s difficult to engage in meaningful transactions when no one knows what to do with the coins or how they can benefit from using them.
It seems that worldcoin is going to be remembered as yet another failed cryptocurrency experiment. It’s a shame, since it could have been the beginning of an exciting new financial system. For now, however, it appears that worldcoin is on its way to becoming just another footnote in the history of digital money.
