Decentral Block Post

Worldcoin (WLD), a project partly created by OpenAI CEO Sam Alman, launched the token that will be used within the project's ecosystem on July 24. 

The project has continuously split opinions from within the crypto space up to Silicon Valley, with some praising the project’s ambition to some calling it “creepy” and “dystopian.” Despite these comments, the project continues to pursue its goal of solving income inequality and online identity authentication.

The project was first launched back on March 14, along with a waitlist for its software development kit (SDK). According to its team, the World ID will function as a global digital passport that users are able to store within their phones. The project also claims that the World ID will also provide proof that they are not robots, without the need to provide identifying information to various websites like phone numbers. 

On May 8, the project released its gas-free crypto wallet for verified humans. This allowed users to take advantage of gas-free transfers by registering for a World ID — where they would be asked to provide a phone number or an iris scan. 

According to the developers, the project does not store the data provided by the users. It generates a zero-knowledge proof to verify that the user is a human being, without revealing the data that was used to generate this proof.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has agreed to a “gag order” which will prevent him from making comments to third parties that may interfere with his trial — but argues it should apply to all potential witnesses as well, including current FTX CEO John Ray.

The gag order against Sam Bankman-Fried was initially requested on July 20, when the U.S. government accused the FTX founder of attempting to interfere with a fair trial by publicly discrediting former business partner and witness Caroline Ellison in an interview with the  New York Times.

In a July 22 letter to United States District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of New York, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers Cohen & Gresser LLP denied the accusations but agreed to accept a gag order as requested.

A gag order is a legal order often issued by a court to restrict information or comment from being made public or passed onto any unauthorized third party. In this case, Bankman-Fried will no longer be able to make comments that publicly discredit a government witness by sharing confidential information that may taint the jury pool.

However, in accepting the relief, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers also want the same gag order to be applied to all parties and witnesses that could be involved in his criminal trial.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has condemned the United States securities regulator over recent comments from its lawyers that hint at a possible appeal to its case against Ripple.

In a July 23 tweet, Garlinghouse slammed the regulator for its "regulation by enforcement" approach, arguing it has only served to hurt retail investors.

“​​The SEC created this mess by proclaiming it was the cop on the crypto beat when it had no legal jurisdiction,” wrote Garlinghouse in a July 23 tweet. “Where’s that gotten us? Consumers left holding the bag in bankruptcy court while the SEC holds press conferences,” he added.

Garlinghouse’s criticism came in response to the SEC’s latest round of comments concerning Ripple, where the regulator hinted at appealing the split-decision ruling against Ripple Labs.

On July 21, the SEC used its ongoing case against Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon to air out its concerns with the decision that retail sales of XRP (XRP) on exchanges didn’t constitute the legal definition of a security.