Worldcoin is amidst a World War. Here’s How it Can Fight Back

Worldcoin is amidst a World War. Here’s How it Can Fight Back
  • The project that scans the users’ iris to validate their identity is facing significant regulatory battles in many countries.
  • Worldcoin must provide concise information outlining how data will be collected, used, and stored.

Worldcoin, an innovative project with a vision of establishing a global identity and financial network, aims to revolutionize the way we perceive digital identity and currency. Founded on the ambitious goal of granting majority ownership of this network to humanity, Worldcoin endeavors to unleash economic potential, ensure online privacy, enable democratic processes, and even lay the foundation for a Universal Basic Income funded by AI.

At its core, Worldcoin comprises two crucial elements: World ID, a privacy-focused digital identity network utilizing ‘proof of personhood’, and WLD, its digital currency. The World App serves as the main interface to World ID and the Worldcoin Protocol, developed by Tools for Humanity (TFH).

‘Proof of personhood’ forms the heart of Worldcoin’s concept, verifying individual human status and uniqueness. Successful implementation of World ID could set a global standard for validating personhood and overcome challenges in online voting as well as value distribution.

Worldcoin’s foundational principles include emphasizing ‘proof of personhood’ in the AI era, aligning network incentives for genuine human involvement, and drawing parallels with Bitcoin and Ethereum’s security models. However, challenges arise, particularly regarding the collection, handling, and privacy of biometric data.

World ID, backed by the Orb biometric device, offers a privacy-focused way to verify individual identity. While it promises enhanced security through unique biometric markers, it raises concerns about data storage and ethical usage. The diversity of data privacy regulations worldwide adds complexity, prompting concerns and regulatory scrutiny in countries like Kenya, the United Kingdom, India, and the United States.

Kenya suspended Worldcoin’s activities due to security, privacy, and financial issues, raising questions about data handling, ownership, and legality.

Additionally, The Information Commissioner’s Office, the U.K.’s data protection regulator, has said that it is “examining” the project and “making further inquiries” about its data collection practices. While India’s central bank, The Reserve Bank of India, has warned that Worldcoin is not legal tender and that using it as a payment instrument is illegal. Also, The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has not yet commented on Worldcoin, but some experts believe it could be classified as a security, subjecting it to stricter regulations.

In a world embracing digital transformation, Worldcoin’s proposal signifies a paradigm shift in identity and finance. However, the controversial aspects surrounding biometric data and regulatory challenges highlight the need for transparency, robust safeguards, and respectful adherence to privacy laws.

As Worldcoin strives to redefine the digital landscape, its journey underscores the intricate balance between innovation and ethical responsibility. The project’s success hinges on its ability to address concerns, collaborate with regulators, and ensure data security, providing a future where digital identity and financial networks coexist harmoniously on a global scale.

Vigilant in Avoiding Exploitation

To address privacy and data collection challenges, the project should prioritize enhanced transparency regarding its data collection and usage practices. Worldcoin must provide clear and concise information that outlines how data will be collected, used, and stored. It should obtain informed consent from individuals prior to collecting their biometric data is essential. Ensuring that individuals fully comprehend the implications of data sharing and voluntarily provide consent is paramount.

Worldcoin must be vigilant in avoiding any exploitation of vulnerable populations. The project’s marketing and recruitment strategies should adhere to ethical principles and avoid targeting those who may be more susceptible.

Also, collaboration with regulatory bodies is imperative. By engaging with regulators transparently and cooperatively, the project can effectively address any concerns raised and ensure compliance with relevant regulations.

Apart from tackling privacy concerns, Worldcoin can also strengthen its industry footprint to boost legitimacy. It can collaborate with organizations specializing in privacy and data protection that could aid in developing and implementing robust best practices for data collection and utilization.

Additionally, it should create a framework for data governance that would reinforce responsible and ethical data use, further safeguarding individuals’ information. Another step could be prioritizing investments in robust security measures is essential to prevent unauthorized access and misuse of sensitive data. And educating the public about the project’s objectives, practices, and safeguards is crucial for building trust and fostering understanding among potential users.

Casting a Shadow

The emergence of Worldcoin presents a captivating vision of a globally connected identity and financial network underpinned by innovative concepts like ‘proof of personhood’ and biometric authentication. The potential benefits encompass economic opportunities, enhanced online security, and even transformative social initiatives like a Universal Basic Income funded by AI.

Nevertheless, the project has encountered its share of controversy, primarily revolving around collecting and managing sensitive biometric data. While using biometric markers for identity verification holds promise, concerns about data privacy, security, and ethical considerations have cast a shadow over Worldcoin’s ambitious goals.

Source: https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/worldcoin-is-amidst-a-world-war-heres-how-it-can-fight-back/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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Binance CEO Says Exchange ‘Pulled Back’ Bids on Bankrupt US Firms

Binance CEO Says Exchange ‘Pulled Back’ Bids on Bankrupt US Firms

Major crypto exchange Binance is holding off on any plans to invest in embattled crypto firms in the United States.

In a Feb. 18 tweet, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao disclosed that the crypto exchange has pulled back on potentially investing in some bankrupt U.S.-based companies, opting to “seek permission first.”

Zhao also responded to blockchain investor Anndy Lian’s advice to “stay clear” of these firms, saying he agreed with the notion.

Binance’s U.S.-based subsidiary Binance US was in talks to acquire bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital’s crypto assets. In January, CoinDesk reported that bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles approved initial disclosure statements of the proposed plan.

The approval came after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a limited objection to Binance US’s $1.022 billion offer for Voyager’s assets, questioning how the exchange could afford a purchase of this magnitude.

Binance was also allegedly one of the bidders for bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network’s assets, according to documents leaked by Celsius creditor Tiffany Fong last month. Investment firm NovaWulf was ultimately selected to acquire Celsius’ assets by the firm’s debtors, as per a report last week.

Regulators have turned up the heat on entities like Binance in recent weeks. The crypto exchange’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, issued by Paxos, became the subject of scrutiny after the New York Department of Financial Services ordered the firm to stop minting BUSD. The Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC also hit Paxos with a lawsuit over its BUSD offering.

In light of recent events, many believe that Binance could be turning its attention away from its U.S. business partners entirely. A Feb. 18 report from Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, stated that the crypto exchange planned to end relationships with U.S.-based intermediaries, and delist all US-based cryptocurrencies. Zhao labelled these claims as “false” in a tweet shortly after, saying “blockchain has no borders.”

 

Source: https://unchainedpodcast.com/binance-ceo-says-exchange-pulled-back-bids-on-bankrupt-us-firms/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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NFT Back to Basics: 5 + 5Ps of Marketing

NFT Back to Basics: 5 + 5Ps of Marketing

The 5 P’s of Marketing – Product, Price, Promotion, Place and People – are key marketing elements used to position a business strategically. Most of us, whilst still understanding what makes an NFT valuable, have forgotten that these are also the key elements for an NFT project to succeed. The industry is filled with people who are focusing on short-term hypes and price pumps. This is more obvious when the market is bullish; all kinds of projects get a price push upwards no matter what you launch and draw.

The NFT global sales figures for September are at $507 million. January sales figures were at their peak, at $4.7 billion. This is the 8th consecutive month of dips and almost a 90% dip from its peak. Having said so, the basics of marketing come in handy and timely. We will dive into the basics, 5Ps and an additional 5 more tailored to the NFT markets to make this a perfect 10.

Product

In the NFT era, tales say that you only need to make a nice profile picture, and you will sell them like hot cakes. Well, a nice picture would surely draw some form of attention to what you are offering, but it is not enough. You need to have a product and a theme behind what you are trying to do. If today, your NFT offering is a high-end membership, then apart from using the NFT to identify yourself, you need to offer maybe a members club venue at a high-end location to make it attractive. This is part of your product offering, and you need to fulfil it.

Take another example for discussion purposes. You are an NFT yield product, and you promise all your holders that they can get a 30% yield per annual. Then the bare minimum thing you need to do is honour your product offering. It may sound simple to many of you right now, but in these current bearish times, many of such offerings cannot be fulfilled anymore.

Price

The price element refers to setting prices for your NFTs and their services. Forget about selling your NFTs at 100 ETH at the current market conditions. You should know who your people are, and how much they are willing to pay for your NFTs. I would at times suggest putting up a survey to get your community to determine the price and not pure guessing.

Bybit NFT Marketplace launched its GrabPic programme, and it has received positive feedback from its users. They have good projects at a low starting price, attracting new users and aspiring projects together on their marketplace to grow with them. So far, all those who have listed on to their new program are all sold out. I have seen projects offering 5,000 to 10,000 pieces of NFTs, and all sold out. My book “NFT: From Zero to Hero” was the first to be launched on that program. The price point of $2.99 that was determined by Bybit works perfectly because they know their users. The secondary markets look healthy too with a total trading volume of $187,460. Therefore, I recommend to all price their NFTs according to your people instead of just looking at the market.

Both place and placement are used to talk about this P. If you are a crypto native, your target audiences are mainly residing in your community. If you are a traditional brand going into the NFT space, you may be targeting a particular geographic area, the population of the area, the buying power of the area, and the spending patterns of people in the area. The most important question is, are those people willing to convert their money to cryptocurrency to buy it? Do they know how to use a decentralised wallet?

Again, using the above example again on the second P. I launched my NFT book on a centralised exchange as my followers and community members are mainly crypto natives, and they understand the process of buying an NFT using cryptocurrencies like USDT, BNB, ETH etc. Those not in the crypto space but keen to experience what an NFT book is like can register an account with the exchange using a user id and password. It is easy for them to navigate.

Promotion

After you know where to promote your product, it’s time to turn ideas into action. NFTs are used in marketing strategies as advertising tools, PR strategies, events promotions and more. The promotion covers every strategy you use to sell your product, and it is what connects to revenue. Inbound marketing, direct sales, press launches, everything comes in the promotion.

Suppose you are a small-budget project, just like me. Focus your promotion around the community partners that you are familiar with. This is a win-win situation, especially in bearish times where everyone is trying their best to promote themselves. Coming together and staying united is an excellent way to create more buzz for everyone. Having said so, I know projects which are still spending hundreds of thousands on Twitter advertisement placements and promotions. If your target audiences are there and you get back good revenue, why not?

People

To truly stand out, NFTS must make customers and their long-term satisfaction the heart of everything they do. By winning the hearts of your community, you will grow better. People are one of the hardest to manage. You need to know their characteristics, behaviour, preferences and when to do the things that bring everyone together. I had good friends, but some of them are no longer friends, frankly. The typical failure for most of them is that they spent a lot of time talking- AMA, Twitter Spaces and 1-1 calls. There are a lot of big talks, but no actions. Community members are not dumb, and they can sense your sincerity.

The people factor is also amplified in the crypto space, where everything is 24/7 and global. Community expectations go higher than product features. They expect to be treated well, and available constantly, and they expect you to be listening to them if you are positioned as a ‘community-owned project’. Lastly, the synergy within your team. You must take into account your staff and their roles. It is very sad to see projects led by volunteer investors who are mostly not professionals, and they take time off and go MIA from time to time. Such a structure will not work in the long run and is not sustainable.

In some cases, the developers are anonymous. They used KYC documents of their community members, who are technically not the owners of the project. The problem will arise when the developers go AWOL, or the project goes south, and the person who did the KYC will be responsible for any wrongdoings. This is a significant risk for everyone. My sincere advice is- Do it right.

Apart from the traditional 5Ps that we know, I would like to add 5 more.

Patience

The most expensive and most popular NFT art, then Beeple’s piece titled ‘Everydays – The First 5000 Days’. This collage masterpiece took 13 years to make, and more than 5,000 digital images are on it. It was sold for $69.3 million. He took 13 years to make the sale, which is reasonable, but in today’s NFT world, everyone is pampered, and they expect to flip them in days.

Positioning

Positioning is very important. This is a term used to describe how a brand is seen by consumers, how it stands out from rivals’ products, and how it differs from the idea of brand awareness. A small-time author like myself needs to position my NFTs and relate to my community. A big-time exchange needs to position itself in many ways. NFT Exchanges, in particular, need to position themselves in the most strategic manner. NFT exchanges are the rising stars in the crypto market. It is the bridge for non-crypto users to us. In time to come, centralised NFT exchanges will be walking down the path of exclusivity. AAA games that will eventually get into the crypto space will decide which centralised exchange they will use exclusively to sell their gaming assets. I mentioned the word centralised a few times in this short paragraph because processing is faster, responsibility and customer satisfaction are stronger, the fees are lower, and there is no need to go on-chain for all the assets in the short term. Hence I will expect NFT marketplaces to grow very swiftly in the years to come.

Packaging

After you have positioned yourself, you need to start packaging. To me, the packaging is the action item for your positioning and branding. If you are a project that is positioned to be a Green and Charitable NFT project. Then you need to pack yourself with all the related marketing, events and PR that link back to your brand.

Participation

This is closely related to the People element. There are many cases where there are 50,000 community members, but you cannot even sell 5 of their NFTs to them. This kind of outcome to me is zero participation. Your NFT may not be what they want, or maybe you have not done enough marketing to convince them that this NFT is worthy. The other wayside to this is over-participation. I have seen projects which promised the sky to their community, and their community works very hard to spread the word. The NFT sold well, with 1000% participation, but the fulfilment part is bad. Their game is not launched on time, or the NFT does not work in the game. Overall, over-participation is still a good thing.

Pacing

NFT projects have got to pace themselves in these current market conditions. Let’s say you have a good concept and the NFTs are all ready. You need to pace yourself with the market to get the best outcome for your project. If you choose to do it when the market is bad, you have to look into the 5Ps more carefully, and pricing is a sensitive one. Once you have already launched your NFT project; you should pace yourself to introduce new utilities and developments and not show all your hand at the start and do nothing after. Pacing is an art.

Pumped

This is the best-case scenario. If you have done the above in the right place, right timing, good product and so forth. Your NFT project is all pumped up in price, and your community is all-time active.

You need to maintain your lead and good results. Therefore, it is time for you to revisit all the 10 Ps again and go back to the basics.

Anndy Lian is the author of the book “NFT: From Zero to Hero

Source: https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/nft-back-to-basics-5-5ps-of-marketing/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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