Worldcoin has no trouble drawing attention. In exchange for having their irises scanned and receiving a digital ID and, in some countries, free cryptocurrency, more than 2.2 million people have joined up.

Sam Altman, the creator of ChatGPT, is working on a new project that wants to build a blockchain-based “identity and financial network”. Since its inception on July 24, its native coin, WLD, has maintained a consistent price between $2 and $2.50, avoiding the “pump-and-dump” trajectory that many new crypto coins experience.

According to Gordon Grant, co-head of trading at Genesis Trading, which isn’t yet offering the token to clients, the investor community is divided on the future of Worldcoin.

There are people who have truly formed opinions about this initiative, both positive and bad, he remarked.

A total of 10 billion of the tokens will be issued into the market over the course of the next 15 years, according to Worldcoin’s white paper, which is available online. According to data from market watcher CoinGecko, the number of tokens in circulation on Monday was 120 million, or roughly 1.2% of the total potential supply.

With the project being funded by investors like Andreessen Horowitz, several tech players are excited by Worldcoin’s ambition to offer a digital ID system based on what it terms “proof of personhood.”

There are a number of firms working to create blockchain-based digital identity systems, but none are as large as Worldcoin, according to PitchBook analyst Robert Le.

Worldcoin is betting that this will become more crucial as the demand for people to be able to prove their human status online rises due to artificial intelligence bots.

Caveat emptor applies to most of cryptography.

According to James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, purchases right now are likely to be individual investors because institutional players might be more hesitant due to the confusion around whether Worldcoin is a security.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has classified more than 50 altcoins, or cryptocurrencies smaller than bitcoin and ether, as securities, according to CCData.

Data watchdogs in Germany have been looking into Worldcoin since November of last year, and this week the business received a stop-work order for its eyeball-scanning operations in Kenya due to worries about potential threats to the general public.

Regulators looking into a token is never a good thing, according to Riyad Carey, a research analyst at the blockchain analytics company Kaiko.

According to Worldcoin, it is “completely private”, its ID system is “designed to enable anonymous actions”, no personal information is published by default, and biometric photos are not shared with Worldcoin unless a user decides to do so. It claims to be closely collaborating with regulators.