Singapore probes illegal trading of Worldcoin accounts and tokens

Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong announced that authorities are investigating seven individuals suspected of illegally buying and selling Worldcoin accounts and tokens, as per a statement on Sept. 9.

Yong noted that the MAS does not recognize Worldcoin as a qualified payment service under the PS Act. However, he clarified that those who trade Worldcoin accounts and tokens as a business may be engaging in payment services.

According to him, such transactions could be illegal and used to facilitate criminal activities like money laundering and terrorism financing.

This investigation into Worldcoin in Singapore comes amid the company’s ongoing legal troubles globally.

Over the past year, regulators like Kenya, South Korea, and Germany have launched probes into Worldcoin’s use of iris biometric data, citing potential breaches of local data protection laws.

However, Worldcoin has continued to abide by local and international laws publicly. The firm has also made critical components of its technology open source to ensure transparency and further enshrine the protection of its users’ data.

Meanwhile, Worldcoin co-founder Alex Blania expressed ambitions to grow the platform on a scale similar to Facebook to increase its utility. Presently, the crypto identity project’s website shows that it has registered more than 6 million users globally in over 160 countries.

Worldcoin’s WLD token is up more than 4% in the last 24 hours and was trading at $1.47 as of press time, according to CryptoSlate’s data.