WorldCoin

Worldcoin ([code: WDC) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Inspired by and technically nearly identical to Litecoin (LTC), Worldcoin creation and transfer is based on an open source encryption protocol and is not managed by any central authority. Worldcoin is intended by its developers to improve upon Bitcoin and offers three key differences.
Each Worldcoin is subdivided into 280,000,000 smaller units, defined by eight decimal places.
Differences from Bitcoin
Worldcoin offers three key differences from Bitcoin, which its developers hope will make it better than Bitcoin.
*The Worldcoin network aims to process a block every 30 seconds, rather than Bitcoin's 10 minutes, which its developers claim allows for faster transaction confirmation. The network difficulty adjusts according to hashing power available, as the aim is for a block to be mined every 30 seconds.
*Worldcoin uses scrypt in its proof-of-work algorithm: a sequential memory-hard function first conceived by Colin Percival. The original intended benefit of using scrypt was to avoid giving advantage to GPU, FPGA and ASIC miners over CPU miners, which occurs in the Bitcoin protocol. However, this turned out to be an incorrect assumption: GPU mining in Worldcoin's implementation of scrypt is currently ten times more efficient than CPU mining. FPGA and ASIC implementations are more expensive to create for scrypt than for SHA-256, which is used in the Bitcoin protocol.
*The Worldcoin network will produce 250 million Worldcoins, or twelve times as many currency units as will be issued by the Bitcoin network.
Transactions
A peer-to-peer network similar to Bitcoin's handles Worldcoin's transactions, balances and issuance through scrypt, the proof-of-work scheme (Worldcoins are issued when a small enough hash value is found, at which point a block is created, the process of finding these hashes and creating blocks is called mining). The issuing rate forms a geometric series, and the rate declines by 1% every week (every 20,160 blocks).
Worldcoins are currently traded primarily for both fiat currencies and bitcoins, mostly on online exchanges. Reversible transactions (such as those with credit cards) are not normally used to buy Worldcoins as Worldcoin transactions are irreversible, to avoid the danger of chargebacks. As of 30 September 2013, 1 WDC is worth approximately 0.006 USD or 0.000042 BTC. This makes Worldcoin the 17th largest cryptocurrency by value of money supply, with a value of about 125,327 USD.
Addresses
Payments in the Worldcoin network are made to addresses, which are based on digital signatures. They are strings of 33 numbers and letters which always begin with the letter W, for example, WdcFTW8ddVohkskvi9GH5LNBPdc9DtXB1f.
Confirmations
Transactions are recorded in the Worldcoin blockchain (a ledger held by most clients), a new block is added to the blockchain roughly every 30 seconds (whenever a small enough hash value is found for the proof-of-work scheme), a transaction is usually considered complete after 2 blocks, or 1 minute.
History
Introduction
Worldcoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on May 16th, 2013. It was a fork of the Litecoin-Qt client, differing from it only in having a modified block generation time, different hashing algorithm, and slightly modified GUI. The current version of this client (as of 1 September 2013) is v0.6.4.5.
Media Mentions
More recently Worldcoin has been covered in the news as a Bitcoin alternative.
Worldcoin Foundation
Mission
The Worldcoin Foundation was established on August 1, 2013 with the purpose of providing a voice from the community to the developers and maintainers of Worldcoin, and function as a platform to help disseminate news and information about it.
Board Members
Nathan Gudmunson - Chairman
Mr. Gudmunson is the core developer for Worldcoin as well as an organizer for the Worldcoin community. He has been previously associated with a variety of businesses and educational institutions including NBCUniversal, Microsoft, Arizona State University, and Bellevue College. Mr. Gudmunson holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Washington, Seattle. He was a founding member of Paper Napkin Designs, LLC., as well as the founder of WorkingPC, a web development company.
Asa Gunderman - Vice Chairman
Asa began his career working on computer electronics while serving in the United States Navy. Since leaving the military, he has started a networking solutions company and is the co-founder of Worldcoin Foundation, LLC. Asa has spent the better half of a decade assisting small businesses with networking and systems administration.
Doug Gilmore - General Counsel and Board Member
Doug is a principal and Founder of Worldcoin Law, LLC. He was an attorney with Snell & Wilmer (the largest law firm in Arizona) and portfolio manager with Motorola, where he served as counsel to the Semiconductor Products Sector, Solid State Research Center, and Microelectronics and Physical Sciences Research Lab. He lived in Germany for ten years and has extensive experience with the administration of intellectual property and regulatory matters abroad. His law firm regularly performs due diligence investigations pursuant to clearing high-profile licensing agreements for Fortune 500 clients. Doug specializes in patent preparation and prosecution, intellectual property strategy and asset management, client counseling, domestic and international patent procurement, opinion work, litigation, disclosure review and clearance, licensing, due diligence investigations and transactional agreement work. He also draws on extensive experience and expertise with legal and regulatory matters involving the use of crypto-currency, alternative payment systems, and various loyalty/reward programs.
Jonas Borchgrevink - Board Member
Borchgrevink founded MyGoodAct in 2009 which was one of the world's first crowdfunding platform for social causes. It has received international attention and raised more than 1 million USD for different projects worldwide. He also has a web consultancy company that has consulted multiple prominent persons and companies. In 2012 Borchgrevink was elected to be a part of Global Shapers Oslo organized by World Economic Forum where HRH Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway is the founding curator. In 2013 Borchgrevink was elected to be the curator of Global Shapers Oslo now leading a group of 15 highly talented and engaged people. Global Shapers consists of 3000 shapers worldwide in over 300 different hubs with an age span from 20 to 33 years. Borchgrevink has also co-founded the social innovation fund Aung San Suu Kyi World Freedom Fund in 2012 that initially raised 10 000 000 SEK. Borchgrevink has a Bachelor in Entrepreneurship and Business from BI Business School in Oslo. He is now employed in Partnership for Change, a non-profit organization based in Oslo with the mission to improve society by activating cross sector collaboration and social innovation. Partnership for Change got offices in Norway, USA and Myanmar.
Awards:
* Borchgrevink won the prestigious Wenche Foss’ Honor Award in 2011 becoming the youngest person receiving the award.
* In 2012 Borchgrevink became one of four worldwide finalist of the Ferd Award for Social Entrepreneurs.
Software Development
The Worldcoin Developers have a new release 0.6.4.6 in the works which include graphical updates to the Worldcoin wallet.
Worldcoin Communication
Worldcoin has presence in two places on the web for communcation, specifically chat. The first is on IRC at freenode.net, channel #worldcoin. The second is the WorldcoinForum chat, at the Worldcoin Forum.
Major markets
* mcxNOW Worldcoin currency exchange
* Cryptsy Worldcoin currency exchange
* BTER Exchange Worldcoin currency exchange

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