Sweatcoin, an app available for Android and iOS devices, hopes to incentivize users to exercise in exchange for digital currency.The app tracks your steps and rewards users with a native currency known as Sweatcoins. Through its ‘Walk&Earn’ feature, the app pays out at a rate of 0.95 sweatcoins per 1,000 steps taken outdoors. Sweatcoins are redeemable in the in-app store, which lets users purchase a variety of fitness-themed products and gadgets. The store also features continuously updated offers.Additionally, the app occasionally offers PayPal cash and Amazon gift cards in the store, although they tend to sell out quickly. Users also have the option to donate their earned coins to one of the company’s supported charities. With the free version, users earn a maximum of 5 Sweatcoins per day, requiring around 5,000 steps to earn. Upgrading to higher tiers allows users to earn more Sweatcoins per day. The first tier costs 5 Sweatcoins per month, and lets users earn 10 coins each day.
Sweatcoin makes use of GPS and accelerometers built-in to modern mobile devices in order to facilitate its services. The app is able to tell where its users are walking, and only counts steps taken outdoors, meaning users can't cheat the system with cars or treadmills. Currently, the app is only available in the United States, the UK, and Ireland, but there are plans to make the service available to a larger portion of the global market. Aside from monetary rewards, Sweatcoin’s developers believe that users get psychological rewards for exercising. “It is the emotional element that makes people engage with Sweatcoin on a daily basis and open us three times a day,” said co-founder Oleg Fomenko, in a statement to Reuters.
Due to the app’s success in topping charts on both the Google Play and the iOS App Store, Sweatcoin developers recently secured $5.7 million USD funding from global investors. The currency’s infrastructure does not make use of blockchain technology, and cannot be traded into fiat currencies in the same way as most digital currencies. Moving forward, the team hopes to evolve the platform so that investors can trade Sweatcoins (SWC) through exchanges.With its ambitions set and recent funding under its belt, the app has the potential to convert its large user base into a movement of its own. Image credit: Sweatcoin
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