>A Sam Altman project which seemingly popped up out of nowhere, and offered people free money

Was it free money? I recall that it was some shitcoin token paid out, which may or may not be worth something.

I could be wrong, of course.

Depending on degree of cynicism*, both takes are compatible with what was observable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_(blockchain)

* For what it's worth, my cynicism for Worldcoin and that eye scanner thing is currently about 7/10: moderately high but could be much worse.

By comparison, I'm 9/10 in cynicism for Facebook and 10/10 in cynicism for everything Musk does except SpaceX, my SpaceX cynicism is only 5/10.

It was crypto coins that you could trade for money. I did it and have got about $300 worth.

It was 'worldcoin'. And yes I used the term 'money' very loosely there.

Apparently the token was only offered in some countries, and in some places where it was offered, that was considered enough of a bribe to render void the informed consent to collect and process private data.