KUALA LUMPUR (May 11): Digital business solutions provider Cuscapi Bhd (KL:CUSCAPI) said Securities Commission Malaysia has approved its associate company MX Global Sdn Bhd to facilitate the trading of the Worldcoin (WLD) token on digital asset exchanges recognised by the SC.
As such, WLD will now be included on the list of permitted digital assets to be traded along with bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Uniswao (UNI), Avalance (AVAX), Polygon (MATIC), Polkadot (DOT) and Cosmos (ATOM), according to a bourse filing by Cuscapi.
MX Global is one of six recognised market operator-digital asset exchanges (RMO-DAX) in Malaysia. It obtained SC's approval to operate in July 2021.
In March 2022, MX Global said it had secured an undisclosed equity investment from cryptocurrency exchange Binance, while Cuscapi invested RM9 million to subscribe for its redeemable convertible preference shares (RCPS).
WLD is an iris biometric cryptocurrency project developed by Tools of Humanity. It encourages people to have their irises scanned by its "orb" devices, in exchange for a digital ID and free WLD tokens.
This, according to WLD, is to provide a reliable way to authenticate humans online using World ID, to counter bots and fake virtual identities facilitated by artificial intelligence. More than five million people in 120 countries have signed up, according to WLD's website.
However, the project has raised privacy concerns in multiple countries. Most recently, Portugal's data regulator, the CNPD, in March ordered WLD to stop collecting biometric data for 90 days, citing a high risk to citizens' data protection rights, which justified urgent intervention to prevent serious harm. More than 300,000 people in Portugal have provided WLD with their biometric data, the CNPD said.
In April, co-founders of Tools of Humanity, Sam Altman and Alex Blania, jointly attended a video call with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to discuss "several matters related to the rapid development of technology" and provide an update to the progress of the WLD project. The video call was also attended by Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz and Minister of Digital Gobind Singh Deo, according to a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Anwar.
Later in the same month, Blania came to Malaysia for a meeting with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC), also attended by Gobind. The meetings were said to demonstrate that the project is taking concerns related to data collection and privacy seriously, and is willing to work more closely with regulators and government officials.
According to Binance, one WLD token is currently valued at US$5.89 (approximately RM27.91), with a market capitalisation of US$1.23 billion (RM5.83 billion).