News

World Network, the iris-scanning digital ID project formerly known as Worldcoin, can no longer offer crypto incentives to Brazilians.

Brazil’s data protection watchdog has ordered the company behind the biometrics for the World ID project to stop offering crypto or financial compensation for collecting biometric data from its citizens.

The National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) on Jan. 24  ordered Tools for Humanity (TFH), which is behind the eye-scanning crypto project World Network, formerly Worldcoin, to stop providing services to Brazilians from Jan. 25 after an investigation that began in November following the launch of the World ID project in Brazil.

The ANPD’s enforcement division reported that it determined offering crypto as compensation could compromise the validity of user consent for collecting sensitive biometric data.

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Dean Norris, known for his role in the TV series Breaking Bad, had his X account hacked to promote a memecoin using his likeness, which hit a peak value of over $8 million.

TV star Dean Norris had his X account hijacked to promote a memecoin that used his likeness as part of a pump and dump scheme. 

In a Jan. 26 video posted to his X account, Norris, best known for his role as Hank Schrader in Breaking Bad, said he was hacked, and the memecoin, DEAN, was a “complete, fake scam” and blasted Reddit users who he claimed “called me all sorts of shit for something I didn’t do. Go fuck yourselves.” 

The post promoting the token has been taken down, but users took screenshots of the original and subsequent posts from the hackers, which included an apparent doctored photo of Norris holding a piece of paper with the ticker DEAN and its launch date.

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Some Ethereum layer 2s would be forgoing hundreds of millions of dollars obtained from fees to make Ethereum more connected at the base layer.

Executives from leading Ethereum layer 2s have said they’re willing to make Ethereum more unified by implementing “based” and “native” rollups, which they say could improve security while making the network less fragmented.

The head of Ethereum layer 2 Base, Jesse Pollak, said on a Jan. 25 call with Ethereum founders and developers that based rollups are “both a flexible and powerful tool that we’re going to be able to use for Base to make it more connected to Ethereum and increase the security guarantees that it provides.”

Optimism Foundation Director Ben Jones added that base rollups would improve the collaboration between Ethereum’s base layer and layer 2s.

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