Africa Worldcoin KYC outsourcing: The story behind earning 20,000 daily income.

Source: Jessy, Golden Finance

Recently, Zhao Zhao (alias), who had hired black people in a certain country in East Africa to do Worldcoin KYC and then resold the accounts to domestic users, returned to China. The product that users found on Xianyu, which passed the Worldcoin KYC, was actually sourced from third parties like Zhao Zhao in Africa.

But now this business is not easy to do. Worldcoin has officially launched, making the coin price transparent and eliminating gray areas. In addition, due to the recent political instability in a certain country in East Africa, he has suspended his KYC business and returned to China.

This business lasted for more than three months. At its peak, at a location where iris verification was possible, it could earn 20,000 yuan in a day. However, the most profitable days only lasted for two weeks, which was in May when Worldcoin was at its peak in China. At that time, the growth of new local users exceeded expectations, and soon the operators discovered something fishy.

Here is Zhao Zhao's oral statement:

This business became difficult to operate later on. Before I returned to China, one of our employees was caught by the local police and had to pay nearly 250 yuan to be released (the local minimum wage is about 900 yuan per month). The police arrested the person on charges similar to "disturbing public order" in China.

What we do is to do KYC on behalf of others, and we have been doing it for about three months. I have a full-time job locally, and this business is part-time. The business is not difficult. We find the local promotion points set up by the local operators, and my local employees take the hired migrant workers to verify iris KYC. Initially, these migrant workers were paid $1, but later, as the competition among third-party verification KYC teams increased, their wages increased to $3.

This matter is 99% pushed by Chinese people behind the scenes. The competition is fierce, and local Chinese people see money to be made, so they all start doing this. On the one hand, the wages of migrant workers are rising, and on the other hand, the headhunting fees of local employees are also increasing. In the early days, the cost of setting up an account was about six to seven US dollars, but later it rose to nine to twelve US dollars.

The increased costs in the later stage mainly come from tipping the store staff. They found that there was always one person who brought several people to complete the task, and then brought more people over, which was very strange. We have to tip the store employees so that they will allow us to continue working.

When Worldcoin was at its peak in China, it was in early June. At that time, we would find about 100 people every day to verify at each operation point. However, this did not last long, only about a week. Local operators discovered that something was wrong. Worldcoin's ground promotion model was that one operator managed a large area, and each country was divided into five or six large areas, each of which would have ten or twenty stores. About every two or three stores were monopolized by a Chinese third party like me. Regional operators found that some stores had much higher data than others. When they investigated, they found out where the problem was. In order to rectify this "gray industry", the verification business in the East African country where I was located was suspended for a week. I estimate that there were probably more than a dozen Chinese teams doing this, so there were thousands of fake users every day.

The general public in this country has limited understanding of Web3, and Worldcoin's promotion in my country is not good. Before doing this business, I once passed by one of their ground promotion points where they could scan irises. The point was similar to the shed set up for community activities in domestic residential areas. At that time, I did not realize what they were doing. It was not until I saw related content on Twitter after returning home that I understood that it was a ground promotion point for Worldcoin.

If we didn't have third-party help to register people, the actual registration volume of a local store is about ten per day, which is the data I observed there: about one real user can be seen to verify registration on-site every hour. There are several reasons for the shortage of real users: first, the local infrastructure is poorly built, and the phones they use are not like the smartphones we use in China. The operation of Web3 applications requires higher requirements for mobile phones and network speed. Second, local people have little knowledge of Web3, just like the migrant workers we hired, they will not accept U settlement rewards, and we give them local currency.

It seems that the East African country where I am located, as well as most parts of Africa, are not suitable places for Web3 applications to promote. Previously, I helped Debox promote their products locally by contacting Chinese people in various places to be their promotional ambassadors, but the effect was only average. I live here and have hardly seen any other Web3 projects being promoted on a large scale. The locals are more cautious, and if your project becomes successful, the local government will want a share of the pie.

We need to consider the input-output ratio and the market trend when doing this. Worldcoin started promoting in Africa in October last year, but the project did not gain much attention at that time. It was not until OpenAI became popular in China this year that the project was rediscovered. This business opportunity was completely discovered by the Chinese in May and June.

Calculate this: when the cost is $6, selling one account for $40, and one promotion point can handle 100 people, then you can earn $20,000. We hired a general manager who led five small teams, and each team ran around different points every day. Each point could handle 80-100 accounts.

The project party in the early stage also tacitly approved our behavior of finding someone to do KYC. After all, there is user growth and good data. In the early stage of Web3 projects, data is needed to attract investment. However, in the later stage, the project party will definitely dissociate from this behavior and no longer allow so many fake users. In fact, the turning point is when the project party announces that the project will be launched at the end of June. In these African countries, the data has risen too strangely. Moreover, Worldcoin itself emphasizes a real KYC, with each person having only one iris.

There is a saying online that our industry and the promotion of Worldcoin in Africa is a new colonialism of Web3. I would think that people who say such things are "not eating meat and gruel". One or two US dollars is just a few meals for the locals.

What Worldcoin is doing is indeed giving money to people in these third world countries. From this perspective, I think this project is quite great. However, there is still a lot to be done if the project wants to go far.

I work in Africa and have some observations on the local Web3 ecosystem. I think a lightweight wallet would be a suitable Web3 project to promote here. Lightweight wallets can adapt to the local infrastructure level, and wallets may meet the needs of local people. For some African countries, their local currency exchange rates are very unstable, and holding a certain amount of mainstream virtual currency can hedge risks. This wallet can cooperate with the government during the promotion process and provide local users with certain commissions, which should have a good effect.

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