Worldcoin's Orb Mini Draws Criticism, Dystopian Comparisons

Worldcoin’s latest hardware innovation, the Orb Mini, has sparked widespread ridicule and criticism across the cryptocurrency community. The device, designed for portable human verification through iris scanning, was introduced with the slogan “It goes where you go,” but has instead drawn comparisons to dystopian scenarios and raised significant ethical and practical concerns.

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Critics on Crypto Twitter have questioned the device’s usefulness and ethics, with many highlighting the unsettling implications of its design and functionality. Alicia Katz from decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Euler Finance commented on the device’s potential to evoke the “uncanny valley” feeling, where users experience discomfort due to the device’s resemblance to a human. Another user joked about the device’s potential use for registering friends, likening it to a sci-fi prop rather than a practical identity solution.

The Orb Mini is a smaller, more portable version of Worldcoin’s original Orb, designed to create a unique World ID for users stored on the blockchain. It was unveiled at the “At Last” event in San Francisco on April 30 and is part of a broader initiative by Tools for Humanity to roll out 7,500 Orb units across the US by the end of the year.

Several prominent figures in the crypto community have raised concerns over the device’s security, ethics, and practicality. One user questioned the real-life problem the device solves, while others mocked its vulnerability to spoofing, suggesting that it could be fooled by an AI render of a human. The social implications of the device were also criticized, with Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten calling it a “creepy dystopia-shilling” tool that reflects insecurity among its creators rather than solving any real trust issue.

Worldcoin’s efforts to mainstream biometric identity tools continue to face resistance, particularly from privacy advocates who raise questions about decentralization, surveillance, and bodily autonomy. On May 5, the company faced challenges in Indonesia after local regulators temporarily suspended its registration certificates. Several global regulators have expressed concerns over potential risks to the security of users’ biometric data, with governments like Germany, Kenya, and Brazil pushing back on Worldcoin’s operations since its launch in July 2023.