Altman’s Worldcoin Orb Draws US Crypto Fans Even Without Tokens

From Manhattan’s Oculus building to a co-working space in Southern California, Americans are getting their irises scanned by a chrome orb that Sam Altman helped create.

Unlike the roughly 2 million people around the world who’ve completed similar scans in exchange for payment, these US registrants aren’t getting much of value from Worldcoin, the OpenAI chief executive’s latest crypto project.

Drawn by a promotional blitz for an undertaking that has raised privacy and ethics concerns, a few orb pilgrims in New York, Los Angeles and Miami hoped they’d get some crypto for their troubles, while others were drawn by Altman himself.

A Worldcoin orb at a Blankspaces co-working space in Los Angeles on July 26.

Photographer: Caelyn Pender/Bloomberg

Alex Chung, a ...