In August, when the value of Worldcoin tokens (WLD) sank to its lowest, dropping by 46% of its launch value, the fate of Worldcoin looked questionable. With no exact use cases appearing from this Sam Altman-backed venture, the second version, World ID 2.0 was released last week. With new integration methods and advanced use cases across sectors, the announcement of World ID 2.0 pushed the price of WLD to two times its value, touching as high as $4.23. And, Worldcoin now looks to address online frauds. 

Worldcoin Price Chart. Source: Coingecko

Solution to Multi Sector Frauds 

As per a recent report, retailers are losing $100 billion annually owing to bots, coupon stacking and return frauds. With unique identification methods that are being offered by Worldcoin, frauds related to duplicate accounts can be eliminated. 

Yesterday, Worldcoin released a blog on the results of Worldcoin’s first anti-fraud retail integration with Shopify. The company reiterates that there would be improved loyalty defence mechanisms and control over the maximum number of accounts per person, which will help towards fraud mitigation. 

Interestingly, not just in retail, other sectors will also benefit from the same. With Minecraft also onboarded in the latest version of Worldcoin, frauds associated with gaming can be minimised. With a digital passport verification system, a fair-gaming experience can be obtained. 

Automated bots, and bad actor resistance for in-game marketplaces, can fortify security. Additionally, proof of personhood allows the protection against unlawful account sharing which is a potential way for hackers to gain access to multiple accounts. These measures aides towards building an equitable gaming ecosystem. 

Finance sector is not far behind either. With Worldcoin, any form of verification and re-verification can be safely done via a digital passport. When the onboarding process in banks and financial institutions went digital, the scope of frauds for misrepresentation and fake verification also opened up, something which even Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath recently spoke about. With World ID 2.0, these deepfake scams can be countered to a certain extent.   

Interestingly, those verified via Worldcoin on Reddit would now get a verified status, thereby, addressing the problem of spams. 

App Verification Via Passport

World ID, a digital passport, seeks to validate unique human identities online while prioritising privacy. As an open protocol for collective ownership, World ID 2.0 has introduced significant upgrades, including enhanced privacy controls, apps, levels, and a developer portal, which aims to provide users with improved security and functionality. 

With a number of app integration on World ID 2.0, including Reddit, Shopify, Discord and others, user accounts on all these platforms can be verified with the help of this digital passport. The second generation introduces new protocol levels such as Orb+ with face identification, enabling users to exclusively utilise it for specific actions. Furthermore , a user can also build their own application based on the apps available in the Worldcoin App store. 

Captcha, No More? 

Captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test), a type of challenge-response test to differentiate between a human user and bots, is slowly losing relevance. With AI, able to solve captchas with accuracies 15% higher than that of humans. Furthermore, as these codes become more complex, genuine users find it increasingly difficult to solve them, thereby defeating the purpose of having captchas in the first place.

With Worldcoin ID, a user can easily verify themselves without any tedious or time-consuming methods such as captchas. Furthermore, once verified, a user will not be subjected to re-verification. Interestingly, big tech companies are also coming up with ways to avoid captchas in order to provide a seamless experience for their users. 

Scepticism Still Continues

While Worldcoin’s proof of personhood continues sign ups across the globe, the controversies that marred the company a few months ago, still continues in certain regions. Owing to security concerns and even mismanagement of people, certain countries including India had banned physical Orb verification processes. 

However, for this to come to fruition, the entire ecosystem should allow World ID verification as well. With a list of companies from sectors ranging from gaming, ecommerce, finance, and others already allowing World ID verification, more companies can be expected to join the wagon, which can probably address the problem.