Sam Altman’s WorldCoin continues to expand access to its iris-based identification system, World ID. The team launched biometric services in Singapore this month, and added locations in Asia, Europe, and South America, according to details in a recent announcement.
- World ID biometric sign-up launches in Singapore.
- New Orb locations span Germany and Spain.
- Chile and Argentina are seeing an increase in certification stations.
- Scaling challenges have caused outages in India, Brazil and France.
In a December 27th blog update, we announced that World ID is now live at Orb’s Singapore location after the project open-sourced its custom iris scanning hardware and pipeline code.
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World Coin aims to expand into Asia after suspending operations in India
Singapore has now moved beyond Japan to become WorldCoin’s prominent Asian hub as it seeks to meet intense demand for registration on WorldCoin’s global digital identity network.
This progress follows a fall tour of Asia by the product team from Tools for Humanity (TFH), a Worldcoin contributor focused on humanitarian ventures. TFH also recently joined startup organization ACCESS and the Singapore FinTech Association, demonstrating WorldCoin’s ambitions in the region.
Verification Orb sites have been launched in the German cities of Cologne and Leipzig, while Seville and Bilbao have expanded coverage across Spain. Several new cities in Chile have also come online, offering registration services and strengthening coverage in Argentina.
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The expansion comes just months after operations in India, Brazil and France were shut down due to overwhelming interest that exceeded capacity. Sources said that in India, registrants rushed to the validation event to chase the World Coin tokens that were initially offered as an incentive.
The setback highlights the scaling complexities facing Worldcoin’s mission to provide a universal digital identity platform to the unbanked masses. However, the project continues to move forward, powered by approximately 2.7 verified users worldwide.