Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project led by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is facing privacy concerns due to a black market for biometric information required for the project's verification process.

Individuals in China are reportedly acquiring detailed iris scans to gain access to the Worldcoin beta network, posing significant privacy and security challenges to the cryptocurrency industry.

The Worldcoin "Orb" device captures precise images of users' irises to generate anonymized accounts in return for free cryptocurrency tokens, but this identification method has opened the floodgates to exploitation.

Worldcoin has identified fraudulent "World IDs" sold through third-party black market apps as the primary concern and is implementing measures to revise the signup process and create a new recovery process for misplaced World IDs.