Sam Altman of OpenAI launches the Worldcoin crypto project.

Worldcoin, a brand-new cryptocurrency effort, was publicly announced on Monday by Sam Altman, the CEO of the AI research company OpenAI.

The core feature of Worldcoin is its "World ID", described as a digital identification system using iris scans to verify users are real humans, not bots. People sign up to have their irises scanned by Worldcoin's orb, a silver sphere the size of a bowling ball, which generates a World ID if it confirms they are human.

The startup behind Worldcoin, Tools for Humanity, is based in San Francisco and Berlin. After a beta test period where 2 million users signed up, Worldcoin is now expanding orb scanning operations to 35 cities across 20 countries. People who register in some nations will be given the Worldcoin cryptocurrency token WLD as a reward.

WLD's price rose sharply in early trading on Monday, hitting $5.29 at its peak on the Binance exchange before settling around $2.49, up from an initial $0.15. Trading volume for WLD was $25.1 million, according to Binance.

Worldcoin says blockchain technology allows World IDs to be stored privately in a decentralized way. Co-founder Alex Blania told Reuters the IDs can't be controlled or shut down by any single entity.

The project aims to differentiate real people from AI chatbots as language models like ChatGPT become more advanced at human-like conversation. World IDs could help determine whether an online user is a human or a bot.

Altman believes Worldcoin can also address economic changes brought on by powerful generative AI. He told Reuters that AI will "supercharge" humans and cause massive economic shifts.

One example he gave is universal basic income (UBI), which Worldcoin could facilitate by reducing fraud through its ID system. Altman sees UBI as a potential solution to inequality as AI takes over more human work. Although unsure of how UBI would be implemented, Altman said Worldcoin lays the groundwork for such ideas.

"We think that we need to start experimenting with things so we can figure out what to do," he stated.