🍩 DONUT HOLES

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• OpenAI CEO calls for U.S. to regulate AI. It says something when he’s going against his own interest…

• Consumer debt balloons to historic high

WEB2

OpenAI CEO 🤌 crypto

Sam Altman, the big brain behind ChatGPT, is rounding up $100 million for his latest brainchild, Worldcoin. The OpenAI top dog is adding to his billionaire innovator resume with a crypto gig that's part sci-fi, part... eyeball scanner?

This new coin on the block aims to be a universal basic income experiment. It’s as straightforward as this: Worldcoin for everyone—for free. Why? Because AI is going to make everyone go jobless.

But there's a catch. You gotta flash your eyeball to this fancy gadget they call the 'Orb'. The crowd's reaction to this, well...it's not all hearts and flowers. Here's the scoop:

1. Privacy and Ethical Concerns: Should we really be trading our irises for some digital gold? I mean, iris data is permanent and unique to you—this isn't like your embarrassing email address from the 2000s, which you can just abandon and replace. Even Edward Snowden (the privacy advocate who exposed America’s global surveillance) voiced concerns on Twitter that Worldcoin might end up creating a global database of iris scans.

2. Security Risks: Adding to the eyebrow-raisers, hackers managed to slide password-stealing malware into several Orb operators. Worldcoin was quick to say it was no biggie, but we can imagine a few eyebrows being raised about a potential breach in the iris-hash data vault.

3. Controversial Data Collection Practices: Worldcoin's boasting about its half a million users is getting some side-eye, too. Critics are saying that they've been luring in people strapped for cash, offering them a quick buck for an iris scan, without being crystal clear on why they want that data.

Worldcoin is stirring up the crypto pot, but it's definitely got a few people squinting at it (pun intended). We say keep your curiosity piqued, stay in the know, but don’t give your eyes up to the Orbs just yet.

BITCOIN

What is Bitcoin’s intrinsic value?

"Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don't produce anything. They don't reproduce, they can't mail you a check, they can't do anything…”

That's what Warren Buffet, the renowned investor and one of the world's richest folks, famously said.

But is it fair to compare Bitcoin to stocks? That's like comparing guacamole to marshmallows – they're just different beasts. Bitcoin is a commodity. Commodities like gold and natural gas don't generate revenue or pay dividends either, but they still have value.

Here's what makes Bitcoin valuable:

1. The first "digital public money"

Decentralization is Bitcoin's superstar feature. It simply means it's available to anyone and owned by everyone. Before Bitcoin, the only public payments infrastructure we had was cold, hard cash. Bitcoin brought us a way to send money remotely without a middleman butting in.

📺 [Watch] The best explanation of Bitcoin you’ll ever hear

2. Scarcity

Picture a world where gold's as common as beach sand. Not so precious now, right? That's also what makes Bitcoin valuable—scarcity. But get this: Bitcoin outshines gold 'cause its scarcity is on point, with a hard cap of 21 million. It's like knowing the exact amount of gold left on Earth. With this predictable scarcity, Bitcoin becomes the digital gold standard.

3. Demand + Speedy adoption

This is kind of a chicken or egg dilemma. Does Bitcoin have value because people use it? Or do people use it because it has value? Jury's still out on that one.

What we do know is that just like paper money, if people believe in its value, it will have value. And that’s exactly what’s happening:

1. Bitcoin ranked 12th in market cap among all assets globally, right behind Meta and Tesla.

2. Bloomberg survey found that, if push came to shove in a financial crisis, Americans would place their bets on Bitcoin as their third choice.

So yeah, Bitcoin's got its unique kind of value, and it's here to stay.

🐦 TWEET OF THE WEEK

Introducing $GREED, the ultimate social experiment. Voshy, the mastermind behind it, asked strangers for full access to their Twitter accounts and for them to connect their wallets to a sketchy website. Surprisingly, 43,000 people fell for it.

The catch? That tweet above was posted on their Twitter when claiming their $GREED tokens. Lesson learned: think twice before giving away control.