New Scientist - USA (2021-12-18)

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If our species was

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I

N 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.
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
MIwhere it gets odd. Worldcoin will
CH
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Columnists

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, Worldcoin’s big

technical advance is that it has

created a shiny, 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 block.xyz, you will discover that

Block’s crypto venture is called

TBD54566975. And TBD54566975

exists only as a Twitter account,

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. ❚

Well, that was interesting

New Scientist’s columnists see out 2021 by examining cryptocurrency

absurdities, sci-fi botany, COP26’s outcome and science’s other corona

Annalee Newitz is a science

journalist and author. Their

website is techsploitation.com

18/25 December 2021 | New Scientist | 33