IN THE waning days of this year, a meme has been making its way across Twitter that goes something like this: “If cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were actually a reliable form of money, the porn industry would already be using them.”
Pornography may not be your cup of tea, but adult content has, time and again, been a bellwether for tech upheavals. The industry spearheaded the VHS revolution of the 1980s and the web revolution of the early 2000s. Yet despite being known for its brash approach to everything, it has shied away from cryptocurrencies.
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Maybe that is because they have become so absurd. Indeed, 2021 might be remembered as the year they finally went off the rails completely.
Take Worldcoin, which at first glance seems like a serious company. It is the brainchild of Sam Altman, an influential Silicon Valley investor, who raised more than $25 million for the firm’s launch in October. The company admits that only 3 per cent of the world’s population currently uses a cryptocurrency, but aims to change that. How? Well, this is where it gets odd. Worldcoin will give “as many people as possible a share of a new currency”. Anyone who wants a Worldcoin can have one – as long as they are willing to look into “the Orb”.
That’s right, , silver ball about the size of a grapefruit called an Orb. You gaze into it, a camera inside takes a picture of your eyes and – poof! – now you have a Worldcoin in your app. Of course, the company also has a picture of your irises.
Like your fingerprint, each of your irises is a unique biometric attribute that can be used to identify you any time you look into a camera. On its website, Worldcoin has strange pictures of “Orb operators” asking people to gaze into shiny balls on a farm in Indonesia and on the streets of unnamed cities in Sudan and Kenya. The vibe is reminiscent of those edge-of-the seat moments in a horror film when something horrible is about to happen to the protagonist. You want to scream: “Don’t look into the Orb!”
Meanwhile, there’s more nonsensical crypto messaging from a company called Block. To catch you up, Block used to be called Square, a company that offers a beloved app that allows small businesses to do easy credit card transactions. Block is run by Jack Dorsey, who was the boss of Twitter before he abruptly quit in late November.
What new stuff is Block going to do? All we know is that it seems to be something to do with blockchain, which is the technology that makes cryptocurrencies work. We can also see that the company’s executives are now represented on its website as photographs that have been plastered onto cubic blocks in such a way that their features look awkwardly distorted. They are literally blockheads – not the look I would choose if I were rebranding a company.
If you try to figure out more by going to the company’s website at , you will discover that Block’s crypto venture is called TBD54566975. And TBD54566975 exists only as , whose description is simply the hashtag #Bitcoin with a few ocean wave emoji underneath.
Definitely not a joke, right? If you are feeling a little uneasy, just look into my Orb. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
