This Ugandan earns a bonus for each person he gets to sign up for Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning crypto project
For the past year, Keneth Byarugaba has been working as a runner for Worldcoin in Uganda. His job is to get as many people as possible to scan their eyeballs into a big metallic orb in exchange for about $60 worth of cryptocurrency.
Runners, who are paid a commission based upon how many Ugandans they recruit to sign up, station themselves in shopping malls, universities and on sidewalks to try to sell passersby on the idea of trading their biometric data for a new kind of digital identity known as a World ID.
“I knew I had what they needed because this was much more like a marketing job where you have to teach people about something and make them pique interest — something that I knew I could do so well,” said Byarugaba, who told CNBC that his knack for engaging strangers was perfected during his days as an Uber driver.
Getting on Worldcoin’s payroll involved jumping through a few hoops.
After passing the application and interview phase, Byarugaba was one of around 500 recruits. A battery of trainings and examinations on blockchain and marketing slimmed his class size down to about 200 employees. The organization’s goal is to make Worldcoin a household name in Uganda.
Byarugaba and his colleagues are selling the idea of being part of a novel world economy, where a scan of your iris unlocks access to universal basic income, online banking and a new form of virtual currency that streamlines the process of paying bills.
The narrative is sticky, and apparently, effective. Worldcoin says more than 2.2 million people have signed up since its soft launch in late 2021, though the organization’s ultimate ambition is to scale to 2 billion people.
But governments have expressed concerns over the biometric enrollment process and possible violations of national data protection laws. Some potential applicants are nervous about the aggressive evangelism associated with the product, as well.
“It just looked like a cool, fancy ball, which I discovered later took biometric IDs from people,” said Namureba Abel, who has worked in the crypto industry for the last decade.
“It looked like a scam mainly because of the focus on marketing and signing up new users,” continued Abel. “They were everywhere. They were in every mall here in Kampala.”
Abel works for Yellow Card, the largest centralized crypto exchange on the continent, and is typically a big advocate of emerging tech in the digital asset sector.
“The trigger for me was just their marketing style and how many users are signing up without any formal education,” he said. “They were actually paying people for data.”
‘A bit too dystopian’
When Muvya Muthama went to a mall in Nairobi, Kenya, to get his hair cut at the end of July, a long queue of people caught his eye. The line, he soon found out, was comprised of Kenyans keen on getting 25 Worldcoin “WLD” tokens — a free sign-up bonus given to all those who scanned their eyes into the orb.
Muthama, who also works for Yellow Card, was simultaneously intrigued and concerned.
After asking on-site representatives about the arrangement, Muthama went to a restaurant in the mall and examined Worldcoin’s white paper on his phone for three hours.
“I saw how they were using proof-of-personhood and blockchain, and I thought, alright, cool, it sort of makes sense,” Muthama told CNBC. “And then I saw that it was by Sam Altman.”
As Muthama dug into the larger mission statement around collecting biometric data as a means to differentiate people from robots, he thought it all seemed “a bit too dystopian.”
Peter Mwangi signed up for Worldcoin in May, ahead of the project’s official launch in July.
“When I’m scanning my face, I’m also asking myself some questions internally: ‘What will they do with all of this data?'” Mwangi told CNBC. “There’s a feeling that they’re taking too much away from you.”
Muthama was also suspicious for the same reason as Abel in Uganda: cash incentives to sign up.
“They were mostly collecting data from third-world countries. For me, it’s like alarm bells going off,” he said. “I don’t think the majority of people in third-world countries know about data privacy.”
“They’re getting enticed by the free Worldcoin and the money,” added Muthama. “When there’s a lot of poverty within a country, they will just rush to go for that free money without actually knowing what they’re going to put themselves into.”
When Mwangi enrolled in May, he said few on the ground knew there was an incentive to sign up and only 10 people were waiting in line with him. By the time the project officially launched in July, there were reports of lines with thousands of Kenyans queueing for a World ID — and the free money that went with it.
“They were giving people these Worldcoins that people could easily convert to Kenyan shillings,” said Mwangi. “People that I’ve spoken to, they don’t care much about what will happen to that data, as long as they receive some of these coins.”
Mwangi told CNBC that the Worldcoin Orb operators he dealt with in Nairobi “didn’t explain much” and that there wasn’t enough time to fully read the terms and conditions on the app before the scan.
CNBC reached out to Worldcoin to ask about Mwangi’s experience in Nairobi, but the organization did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Worldcoin’s orb-shaped devices scan people’s eyes in exchange for cryptocurrency.
Worldcoin
An eye for an ID
Worldcoin, reportedly valued at $3 billion in its most recent funding round, is making a few big promises, but its overriding goal is to sign up the world’s population for a new, decentralized form of identity.
The premise is called proof-of-personhood — that is, validating the identity of every individual on the planet through biometric capture and then connecting that decentralized virtual ID to an address on the blockchain. The company describes World ID as a sort of “digital passport that lets you prove you are a unique and real person while remaining anonymous.”
According to Worldcoin, this ID could be used to sign into all websites without the user having to forfeit identifying information in the process, such as a name or email. It would also theoretically be untraceable by governments or other organizations. As Worldcoin explains on its website, it doesn’t “want to know who you are, just that you are unique.”
Digital identity management company Okta is a first mover on the adoption front. The business-to-business software firm, which has a market cap of $11.5 billion, gave users the option of logging in with their World ID beginning in June. Social media app Discord also uses World ID for verification. But ultimately, the foundation envisions a future where a World ID could be used to facilitate nationwide votes, among other use cases involving banking and e-commerce.
Ava Labs president John Wu tells CNBC that the self-custody feature of the Worldcoin ID is also critical.
“Having privacy, digital identity and having it to yourself — self-sovereign, meaning self-custody — is a big theme in all of the world, not just in web3,” said Wu.
Worldcoin is the brainchild of Sam Altman, the man behind OpenAI and ChatGPT, a large language model-based chatbot capable of human-like conversations that sparked widespread interest in generative artificial intelligence when it launched to the public last year.
At the same time, AI-powered tools have engendered a sophisticated new breed of deep fakes, or digital renderings that mimic the likeness of a real person through voice and video. Collectively, this fresh wave of technology has made it easier than ever to impersonate a human online.
In a way, Worldcoin is Altman’s antidote to the very problem he helped create.
Granting users a unique online persona could theoretically help cut through online fraud and create a virtual world that more closely resembles reality.
As the Worldcoin white paper puts it, “Custom biometric hardware might be the only long term viable solution to issue AI-safe proof of personhood verifications.”
The iris, which controls both the size of the pupil and the color of the eye, is specific to every human. For a decade, the FBI has augmented its fingerprint database with iris imaging. Similarly, Worldcoin’s orb uses multispectral sensors to scan this intricate pattern of ridges and folds in the eye and uses it to assign a singular World ID, which demonstrates definitively that its holder is a human and not a bot.
So far, there are 1,500 orbs in more than 20 countries across five continents. By Altman’s estimates, on day three of its launch, one person was getting verified every eight seconds.
A tester operating one of Worldcoin’s orbs in Chile.
Source: Worldcoin
Safeguarding your eyeballs
The concept of a financial network built on a monopolistic currency accessed through your eyeball may sound like a dystopian mark-of-the-beast tale, but Worldcoin’s pop-up locations don’t feel particularly scary or spooky. Think less sci-fi, more airport security.
The process of collecting biometric data to confirm identity is similar in spirit to the scans that Clear does at the airport, and to Apple’s facial recognition system, Face ID.
In the case of Worldcoin, the organization says it uses a cryptography-based, privacy-preserving technique known as zero-knowledge proofs to separate the biometric data from the identifier.
“We designed the whole system to be fundamentally privacy-preserving,” Altman’s co-founder and Worldcoin CEO Alex Blania previously told CNBC. “The iris code itself is the only thing leaving the orb. There’s no big database of biometric data.”
Worldcoin’s white paper indicates that as a default setting, all images are “promptly deleted” on the orb following sign-up, unless the user specifically opts into Data Custody. Either way, Worldcoin says that “the images are not connected to your Worldcoin tokens, transactions, or World ID.”
Data protection is actually core to the whole design of the system, according to Oliver Linch, CEO of digital asset trading platform Bittrex Global.
“What the founders of the project are saying is, ‘This is a way that we have found to move the conversation on how we secure access and how we ensure that the people accessing their online personas in whatever form that takes are the real people — and they’re not AI or bots,'” said Linch.
Byarugaba tells CNBC that privacy safeguards are a key part of his pitch to Ugandans.
“It’s encrypted,” explains Byarugaba. “No information can be dished out of the system. The fact that this is zero knowledge, zero-knowledge identity, there is not much about someone that is known.”
But participants will have to trust that Worldcoin has properly implemented the technology used to shield the biometric data that was captured to create the ID. They’ll also have to trust the firm has followed basic security hygiene.
Vulnerabilities are already showing in some places, according to reports.
Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that hackers installed malware on devices belonging to Worldcoin Orb operators to capture their login credentials and gain access to dashboards containing a mix of internal data and documents — login details that were subsequently listed for sale on the dark web.
Meanwhile, a black market for iris data reportedly sprung up in China in May, with sellers from emerging markets such as Cambodia offering their credentials to buyers in China where Worldcoin’s crypto wallet is unavailable. Chinese crypto site BlockBeats cited prices as low as $30 for the illicit exchange. The apparent appeal of the trade, according to Coindesk, is access to Worldcoin’s WLD token.
The price of WLD is down more than 80% to about $1.45 since its launch, with a circulating supply of just over 126.7 million coins. The white paper says a total of 10 billion WLD tokens will be released onto the market over the next 15 years, a minting model some crypto analysts have compared with other microcap altcoins that have seen their price surge and then plummet, leaving late-stage buyers with big losses.
Reports say the project has faced a mix of other issues, including scammers conning users out of tokens, as well as questions over whether anonymized test data from participants was used to train the AI models that help power the project. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned of other potential security concerns in a July blog post, including “the possibility of 3D-printing ‘fake people’ that can pass the iris scan and get World IDs.”
In response to privacy concerns, the company told CNBC, “The Worldcoin Foundation complies with all laws and regulations governing the processing of personal data in the markets where Worldcoin is available, including the General Data Protection Regulation and the UK Data Protection Act. From its inception, Worldcoin was designed to protect individual privacy. The project has implemented privacy-centric design and has built a robust privacy program, conducting a rigorous Data Protection Impact Assessment and responding timely to individual requests to delete their personal data.”
Some governments have begun to take action against the project.
Kenya suspended Worldcoin’s tech and raided the company’s local offices in Nairobi as part of a larger probe into the project. Authorities in Argentina, France, Germany and the U.K. have all announced inquiries into the business model, citing privacy concerns surrounding the nature of Worldcoin’s highly sensitive user data, including the identity scans that are core to the project.
In response to Kenya’s suspension, Worldcoin told CNBC, “The demand for Worldcoin’s proof of personhood verification services in Kenya has been overwhelming, resulting in tens of thousands of individuals waiting in lines over a two-day period to secure a World ID. Out of an abundance of caution and in an effort to mitigate crowd volume, verification services have been temporarily paused. During the pause, the team will develop an onboarding program that encompasses more robust crowd control measures and work with local officials to increase understanding of the privacy measures and commitments Worldcoin implements, not only in Kenya, but everywhere.”
Although Worldcoin has a lot of big-name backers, not all inspire confidence.
In May, the organization raised $115 million in a Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital. Other members of its cap table include venture capital funds such as Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, as well as fallen industry titans such as failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and Sam Bankman-Fried, former FTX CEO. Bankman-Fried is currently jailed in New York awaiting a criminal trial while his defunct and allegedly fraudulent exchange makes its way through bankruptcy court.
Ricardo Macieira, Worldcoin regional manager, Europe, holds the biometric imaging device, the Orb, in his hands, Berlin, Aug. 1, 2023.
Annegret Hilse | Reuters
Embracing a brave new world
Kenya has stamped out Worldcoin for now, though it’s worth noting the country has a confusing relationship with crypto. The government hasn’t passed a legal framework to regulate the sector, yet the finance ministry is looking to capture a cut of the proceeds, having just proposed a 3% tax on the transfer of digital assets in next year’s budget.
Still, Worldcoin participants in Kenya and Uganda tell CNBC they see a great deal of utility in both the World ID and the WLD token.
Despite his concerns, Mwangi ultimately chose to enroll in the project because he believed in the wider mission of the World ID.
“Currently in Kenya, a large number of people have been conned out of their money when trying to trade cryptocurrency,” said Mwangi. “It got so bad to the point where the government had to warn people not to use it, and banks will prevent people from trying to buy crypto from crypto providers outside the country, because a lot of people are losing their money.”
“From that perspective, it’s easy to understand that Worldcoin is sort of trying to solve for an identity crisis in the crypto market,” he added. “For that reason, I signed up.”
In Uganda, Byarugaba indoctrinates recruits in other benefits of the WLD token.
“People can use Worldcoin as a medium of exchange because it’s designed to be more of a utility token. That means they can use it in their day-to-day payments,” he said.
Byarugaba also listed off a battery of other potential use cases, including global remittances, accessing loans on the blockchain through decentralized finance and paying bills using the WLD token. CNBC has not independently confirmed whether people on the ground in Kampala, Uganda, are able to use the tech to these ends.
The overwhelming majority of users, however, appear to be cashing out their WLD tokens for fiat cash.
“Most of them have exchanged it and put it to use,” said Byarugaba.
Byarugaba, for his part, isn’t paid in Worldcoin’s WLD token, but in Ugandan shillings via mobile money, which is an electronic wallet tied to a phone number that does not require a smartphone or data to operate. Users can pay bills and shop with their phone through SMS texting, instead of having to rely on traditional banking options.
“We get a daily pay advanced to each one of us to handle our daily expenditure,” he explained. “This advance is deducted off the gross monthly pay per sign-up, and we are given what remains.”
— CNBC’s Jordan Smith contributed to this story.
New filings have revealed that BYD is about to release a ridiculous 3,000 hp electric supercar: the Yangwang U9 Track Edition.
BYD already shocked the world when it launched the Yangwang U9, its first all-electric supercar.
It featured four advanced electric motors with a combined power of nearly 1,300 horsepower. The U9 can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in just 2.36 seconds.
With a motor at each wheel and a highly advanced electric-air suspension, the U9 can turn on itself and even jump over potholes.
But that was only the beginning.
Based on a new filing with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), BYD is preparing to launch a new ‘Track Edition’ of the Yangwang U9:
When an automaker releases a “track” version of a car, it typically primarily features body changes for better aerodynamic performance, adding downforce, and it will also often feature bigger brakes.
The Yangwang U9 ‘Track Edition’ appears to feature all that… and much more.
The filing reveals that BYD updated the motors at each wheel to a new 555 kW motor. That’s a higher-performing motor than in most performance electric vehicles. The U9 Track Edition has four of them for a total of 2,220 kW (3,019 hp).
I would have thought that this was a typo if it wasn’t for the insane electric vehicles coming out of China these days.
Here are a few pictures from the MIIT filing:
There are a lot of performance specs that are not included in the MIIT filing. Therefore, it will be interesting to see when the vehicle is fully unveiled and BYD reveals what kind of performance it can achieve with 3,000 hp packed in 4 electric motors.
Here are a few other features mentioned in the filing:
Standard features:
- 20-inch wheels with 325/35 R20 tyres
- Carbon-fibre roof
- Large fixed carbon-fibre rear wing
- Rear diffuser with adjustable blades for aerodynamic optimisation
Optional aerodynamic parts:
- Standard or enhanced carbon-fibre front splitter
- Electric rear wing
Electrek’s Take
How are they going to keep that thing from flying away? Seriously.
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The eBike space is crowded in 2025, but the Kingbull Jumper Go stands out with a rare combination of features: a compact 20” frame, full suspension, a step-through design, and a powerful Class 3 motor capable of hitting high speeds. Whether you’re commuting through the city, riding off-road trails, or just looking for a versatile, approachable ride, the Jumper Go delivers serious performance, especially for the price.
Key specs
On paper, the Kingbull Jumper Go has all the hardware you would want and need for its size and price. It blends commuter-friendly features with the components you’d expect from more premium off-road eBikes. These specs on paper translate to real-world use amazingly. Here’s a quick rundown of the key specs:
- Motor: 750W Bafang rear hub motor
- Top Speed: 28 MPH with pedal assist (up to 40 MPH unlocked; check local laws)
- Battery: 48V 20Ah Samsung removable battery
- Max Range: Up to 80 miles per charge
- Gearing: Shimano 8-speed drivetrain
- Brakes: Tektro hydraulic disc brakes
- Suspension: Front 80mm fork + rear mid-frame air shock
- Tires: 20” x 4.0” Kenda fat tires (puncture-resistant)
- Frame: Step-through aluminum frame with internal cable routing
- Display: Integrated LED display with speed, assist level, and battery status
- Lighting: Integrated 48V headlight and rear brake light
- Included Accessories: Rear cargo rack, full fenders, mini tool kit, zip ties, tire pump
Together, these features make the Kingbull Jumper Go a rare all-in-one package: powerful, approachable, and ready to handle daily commutes and adventures without compromise.
Real-world experience
I have been living with the Kingbull Jumper Go for two weeks now and have been using it as my daily driver. I have used it for pretty much everything, from small grocery runs, to running a quick errand, to just taking me from place to place. Here is what you need to know.
The setup
The setup was surprisingly simple. The bike has everything needed for assembly, including a mini tool kit, zip ties, and even a tire pump. The Kingbull Jumper Go comes about 80% pre-assembled, with the rear tire and monitor intact. I had to install the front tire, front fender, handlebar, headlight, and seat. Assembly took roughly 20 minutes, and I am someone who does not do this often. It was great that I did not need any of my own tools to get the bike ready. The final thing I did was ensure it was fully charged before getting on it.
The ride
On the road, the 750W motor gives you quick acceleration and plenty of torque, easily handling hills and the urban terrain I live in. The five levels of pedal assist and throttle control give you full flexibility in how much effort you want to put in. I got the bike to almost 30mph with the pedal assist and to 22mph using the throttle. The suspension system, which features an 80mm front fork and a rear mid-air shock, makes city potholes and light off-road trails smooth and manageable.
I live in New Jersey, and if you know anything about our roads, they are terribly maintained and have potholes everywhere. The Kingbull Jumper Go kept the ride very smooth and managed those potholes perfectly. I also took it through some gravel roads, trails, and through some wet terrain, and it was great. The fat tires gives you a strong sense of confidence both on road and when you are dealing with a more challenging terrain.
The design
The step-through frame is especially helpful for beginners and for riders who are sharing this bike with someone who is a different height. The step-through frame also makes it easy to dismount or quickly react by easily putting your feet down without feeling like you are going to tip over.
The 20” Kenda fat tires provide great traction and comfort on surfaces ranging from pavement to grass and gravel. The Tektro hydraulic brakes are responsive and reliable, offering solid control even at higher speeds. You also get a fantastic LED display with real-time speed, distance traveled, and battery life. It is also plenty bright, so the display is easily visible even in the brightest conditions.
After riding this for two weeks in both urban and off-road settings, the Kingbull Jumper Go proved to be equally capable as a commuter eBike, urban cruiser, and all-terrain bike. Its compact frame makes it easier to handle and store compared to larger full-size fat-tire bikes, but without compromising on performance.
Kingbull Jumper Go Pricing and availability
The Kingbull Jumper Go is currently available through Kingbull’s official website for just under $1,699. However, they have a limited-time summer promotion offering $100 OFF with code Electrek, bringing the price down to $1,599. That discount makes it one of the best values on the market for a full-suspension, Class 3 fat-tire eBike. Kingbull’s 2-year warranty also backs it and offers local test ride availability in California, giving potential buyers added peace of mind and confidence in the brand.
Check out the Kingbull Jumper Go today!
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Yep, I did it again. I bought something weird and crazy from China. It’s a mini electric jet boat. “What’s a mini electric jet boat?” you might be asking. Think: comically small one-seater boat with an electrically powered jet ski drivetrain.
Basically, I plopped down a not insignificant amount of money online and then crossed my fingers. Here’s what happened next.
Firstly, this is kind of par for the course for me. If you’ve been following my writing for any significant period of time, you’ll have learned two things about me. I like e-bikes and I like buying weird electric vehicles from China that I don’t need. It’s a problem, I know. I’m going to get help one day. But that day is not today.
Because today I’ve got a new electric jet boat. You can see my unboxing and testing video of this aquatic miracle here, or keep reading below for the full story of how this happened.
So here’s how it went. I’ve spent years writing a mostly-weekly column on the fun and weird Alibaba electric vehicles I find in my time-wasting window-shopping searches. A couple of years ago, one of them was a mini electric jet boat. And I’ve wanted one ever since.
So I started researching factories in China that build these things and talked to a number of them. Some seemed fairly new. Others seemed like fronts or merely trading companies. And they all seemed pretty shady. But this isn’t my first rodeo and so I chose the one that seemed the least risky and started talking details. I use a Chinese messaging service similar to WhatsApp that makes it a lot easier to communicate with the factories, and the lovely girl who works their sales office showed me several models and features. Together, we worked through the details and specs until I had planned out basically what I wanted.
Then it came time to pay.
This is always the scariest part and so I wired to China more money than a bad idea should cost. Over there, it’s common to do a 30% down payment and 70% balance payment upon completion, so that’s what I offered. I’m glad I did because production took several months longer than I expected, and I was starting to get worried, but fortunately, the factory was sending me fairly regular pictures and video updates of progress, which was comforting. After a few months, my order was finally ready, and so they packaged it up and shipped it off to me.
I should also mention that while I normally use FOB (free on board) or CIF (cost, insurance, freight) terms for these kinds of deals where I get some new toy in from China, this particular case was a bit riskier, and so I went with DDP (delivered duty paid) terms. The two former options leave most of the work on me to ship and import the thing, while the last option means the seller basically handles everything until there’s a janky wooden crate dropped in my driveway. DDP terms are always more expensive, and many factories don’t want to mess with it since it leaves most of the work of shipping and importing on the seller or their freight forwarder, which I preferred in this case.
This was also before all the new Trump tariffs this year, and so duties were much lower (somewhere around 27-28% total, I believe. Now they are probably 2-3x that much).
But with all of the work of actually dealing with getting the thing now finished, it was time to crack open the box. Inside was my shiny blue electric jet boat! I had it shipped to my parents’ place in Florida because they have a decently large pond where I could test it. There I got it open and hauled it back to the pond in what else but my electric mini truck that I bought from China nearly four years ago. It has since lived a loving but not easy life as a farm truck, and this isn’t even one of the weirdest things that has graced its bed in the last few years.
The little boat is so small that it actually fits nicely in the little bed of my mini-truck, and it was a great example of why I even wanted this thing to begin with: it’s small enough to fit in a car, so you can take it to the lake or ocean without needing a boat trailer.
Even a jet-ski needs a trailer, but you could take this little vessel to the shore with a kayak rack on your Tesla, or even on a decent car! Just kidding, I don’t even own a car… unless you count that mini-truck that I gave to my parents.
At the pond I dropped the boat down onto the grass, dragged it the last bit of the way down the bank and splashed it right into the drink. From there, I just needed to plop the 5 kWh LiFePO4 battery into the underseat compartment and I was ready to go.
There were no instructions, so it took me a couple of minutes to figure out the right combination of buttons to push and key turns to actually start it up, but from the first push of the accelerator, I knew this thing was wild!
It was supposed to be just over 30 mph capable (50 km/h or 27 knots), but the pond is only around 300 feet long and so the opposite bank comes at you mighty fast. I think I only got it up to around half its top speed because 1) I didn’t want to run aground, and 2) I was legitimately scared to go faster.
The boat comes with these weird stainless steel mounts on the side, and it turns out they are for this ridiculous looking inflatable bumper thing that reminds me of a big toilet seat. I didn’t install it because I hate how it ruins the sleek look of the boat. But I instantly discovered why they designed it, since the jet boat feels horribly unstable at slow speeds. As soon as you turn sharply and let off the throttle at slow speeds, you start heeling over significantly. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling since you’re sitting at the water line and feel like you’re going to be thrown out of the boat. The ballast of the huge battery sitting so low, plus whatever actual ballast they build into these things, probably means you won’t really capsize. But it sure feels like you’re going for a swim soon.
Turning at speed is much nicer, but if you’re not yet planing (going fast enough to rise out of the water and glide over the surface instead of just floating due to water displacement), it just feels like you’re going to rock yourself right out in a turn. The boat was obviously designed to handle at high speeds, not low speeds. It doesn’t have the wide beam of a jet ski for stability, so that inflatable toilet seat gives it low-speed stability.
But alas, I just couldn’t bring myself to install the nautical version of training wheels on that beautiful thing, so I pushed through it and just kept it at fairly high speeds in the pond. It was a blast, and with my dad there watching me, I was excited to give him a turn too.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I actually bought two of them.
With my dad’s boat unboxed, we both got in our own mini jet boats and had a blast ripping high-speed loops around his backyard pond.
These things are insanely powerful for what feels like a stubby kayak when you sit inside it, and the performance gives you an ear to grin.
Just be prepared for your face to turn to terror the first time you let off the throttle too abruptly and take a sharp turn.
As fun as they were though, we still weren’t even past half way down on the accelerator pedal, and so I knew that a larger body of water was going to be in our future.
These are motorized vessels and so they require registration to use them in public waterways in most states. It’s not like a kayak or canoe where you can just put in anywhere and pretty much be alright with the law. And in Florida, where the state makes a lot of its money from its waterways, they actually enforce this stuff.
I imagine I can get the boats properly registered with hull numbers for use in public waterways, but for expediency’s sake, I set my sights on a big private lake in a local eco-friendly planned community. The cool thing is that these huge lakes are off-limits to combustion engine watercraft, which means they’re basically only for kayakers and canoers, or the rare person who has an electric boat.
I’m a rare person.
So with the entire lake empty, I brought my jet boat over in the back of my family’s car and put in at the kayak dock.
If you watched my video above, you’ll already know how that went (complete with Beach Boys-style song montage). But for those who prefer to read instead of watching an awesome little jet boat rocket around a big lake, just know that it was an absolute riot. The mini electric jet boat is insanely fast and skipped the glassy surface of the pond like a pebble with a rocket engine on it.
Of course, the surface didn’t stay glassy long with the massive wake I was sending out, and that meant soon I was getting airborne, hopping my own wake while pulling tight figure eights.
With around 25 minutes of boating and filming, I had dropped the battery from 100% to 70%. Despite the high power, that big battery was impressively lasting!
The whole experience proved to me how right I was about the convenience of this boat format. This whole exploit was simple, a word that is almost never used when discussing boat ownership. To get to the water, I simply loaded the boat in the back of the car and then used a cheap Amazon kayak trailer to waddle it the 100 feet or so from the parking lot to the dock. The boat is still quite heavy – I’d guess at least 150 lb (70 kg) or so. But lifting one side at a time is doable by one dude, and the kayak trailer made it easy enough to move on my own across land.
There was no boat trailer necessary. No searching for a boat ramp. No hoping to stay off of Miami Boat Ramp YouTube channels lampooning people who don’t know what they’re doing with a trailer, etc. It was the boating experience of a jet-ski meets the ownership experience of a kayak.
For anyone who lives along the water, this would be an amazing toy to own. There are so many people with lakefront property who could have their own mini electric boat to tool around on whenever they want. Or if you live close to the coast, you could keep the boat in the garage with a kayak hoist and just drive it on down to the coast for fun. These things practically sell themselves. Cheaper than an electric surfboard and nearly as portable.
Which brings me to cost. I ended up paying around $5,500 for each boat, which is a lot to risk on this stuff, with only a hope that it would work out and that I could make some of the money back on my video and writing. And if you’re thinking, “Wow, this guy plopped down $11k on this stuff,” then I have two things to tell you. First, a Jet Ski would have cost more and been a huge hassle. And two, I didn’t spend $11k; I spent a lot more.
In fact, I couldn’t stop myself at the time (and considered it something of a business expense – hey, I’m working right now, people!), so it turns out that I actually bought three of these things. I know this sounds like an excuse, but it just made sense with how much shipping was already costing me! I mean, c’mon – I couldn’t afford not to.
Though I still have the third one in the crate and I’ll probably end up selling it new in box, if someone wants to find my email and make me an offer.
That also means I have two boats that I plan to keep, and I need names for them. Please hit me with your suggestions in the comment section. One of my subscribers suggested an absolute banger of a name with Sunny Side Up for my yellow and white solar-powered Chinese electric pleasure boat, and that’s what I went with.
Now I will say that as fun as these things are, they aren’t perfect. One of the boats arrived with its bilge pump motor always running due to a faulty float switch (oh yeah, they even have a bilge pump!). The factory also told me that they couldn’t install real cleats through the hull, though at least they did give me a bow eye that helps with tying it up.
I’ve technically been sitting on this story for a year, and I can tell you that after a year of living out in the Florida elements, one of the boat’s paint is a bit cracked near the hinges of the seat where it gets stressed from lifting the seat up to remove the battery.
The boats are also surprisingly loud. These are the loudest EVs I’ve ever seen, and I thought the F-150 Lightning was loud! A neighbor has one and I once remarked that it sounded like a jet turbine in the summer because of all its fans running, but now I know what an EV with an actual jet turbine sounds like, or at least a water jet turbine. To be more accurate, it’s not the boat that’s loud, but rather the cavitating water inside the jet turbine that is constantly screaming as its vacuum cavities repeatedly expand and collapse as they shoot out the back of the boat’s vectored thrust nozzle. It sounds like a wet, angry bat out of hell. A guy watching me from the shore of the lake actually asked if it was a two-stroke! So don’t think this is going to be a silent boat. The motor is silent, but the shooting water is loud.
Then there’s the battery. It weighs nearly 80 pounds and you have to pull the battery out to charge it – you can’t leave it in the boat and charge it since the charge and discharge port are one and the same.
I also burned out one of the chargers when I accidentally let the charger tip fall on some wet grass while it was plugged in. Poof. The magic smoke was out of the charger, and it wasn’t going back in. I’ll have to find another 84V charger and solder this massive and unique charging connector onto its output wire.
Speaking of the chargers, they are 2,500-watt chargers. They’ll impressively fill the batteries in just over two hours, but they are so powerful that they won’t run on any normal household 120V outlet. I got lucky that my dad’s garage had an RV outlet with a 30A breaker; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to use the charger.
But downsides aside, the rest of the experience was incredible! I love these things! They’re just so much fun, and they bring a smile to everyone’s face. Since I bought them a year ago, I’m seeing many more options on Alibaba for other factories starting to make and sell mini jet boats. I can all but guarantee you that within a year or two, there will be people re-selling mini jet boats in the US. Just make sure you go with a reputable company that has done its homework and can stand behind these things. A couple of years ago, I started an electric tractor company based on making a long list of improvements to what was originally a German-designed and Chinese-produced electric loader. We developed it (and subsequent models) into our own new design, offer full warranties, and keep a US warehouse stocked with replacement parts. That’s the only way to do business right, so don’t get hosed a few months from now by some fly-by-night company that read this article and then thought it would be a good idea to start hawking Chinese mini jet boats in the US. These things are quite rough around the edges (literally and figuratively) and would take some significant work to make them safe and reliable for a Western market.
And in the same vein, I don’t actually recommend anyone try and buy one of these from China, either. There’s just too much risk and too big a chance that you’ll get ripped off in the end, or you’ll get bent over a shipping container by customs and end up paying several times the purchase price in shipping and import fees.
I don’t have any plans to import and sell these, largely because of the liability (imagine how much I pay in business liability insurance just to run a tractor company) and the fact that there are too many design changes I’d need to make to turn it into something I’d be proud to stand behind and put my name on. I mostly go on these real-life Alibaba escapades because 1) I enjoy testing the weird and fun things you can find in a country that has certain product safety and manufacturing advantages compared to the West (i.e. less of the first and more of the second), and 2) so that I can share these experiences with my audience, most of whom will never have the ability to try these things themselves.
But hey, as a neat toy for my parents’ pond and the local lakes or Gulf of Mexico fun days, these are going to be perfect for us!
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