Christmas and new year have come and gone and we’re stuck in January wondering what the hell happened with a vague determination to make it better this time round . Well if your new year’s resolutions involved losing weight, getting fit, or being better with money you might interested in a new cryptocurrency called Sweatcoin .
The Sweatcoin Android and iOS apps take your steps and convert them into a digital currency called Sweatcoins that can than be used to buy things via the app. Sweatcoins can even be turned into PayPal gift cards, which means they can be spent pretty much anywhere .
The problem is that, in an effort to prevent fraud, the app needs to track the user’s GPS location . In fact, the permissions required before your steps will qualify for Sweatcoin conversion are pretty extensive. Version 1.10.1 can access:
Identity
read your own contact card
Contacts
read your contacts
Location
approximate location (network-based)
precise location (GPS and network-based)
Phone
read phone status and identity
Photos/Media/Files
read the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Storage
read the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Camera
take pictures and videos
Wi-Fi connection information
view Wi-Fi connections
Device ID & call information
read phone status and identity
Other
receive data from Internet
view network connections, full network access, run at startup, draw over other apps, control vibration, prevent device from sleeping
The constant GPS tracking will also raise battery life issues . There is a battery saving mode but this explicitly states that some steps might be lost, which is as good as money down the drain. So just how much are steps worth in Sweatcoins?
For every 1,000 steps travelled, users will get 0.95 Sweatcoins , which means you’ll make just shy of 10 Sweatcoins a day if the app registers all of your steps. You can use your coins to buy things from Graze snacks for 80 Sweatcoins to an iPhone X for 20,000 Sweatcoins. It has been estimated that about 65% of all steps will be registered, which means it’ll take users about 3,000 days to accrue enough Sweatcoins for an iPhone X.
There is a catch to be taken into account and that is the different types of accounts that users need to sign up to . The Mover account is free and allows users to earn 5 Sweatcoins a day. After that, incremental increases in Sweatcoins paid per month unlock different accounts that allow users to earn more Sweatcoins each day, all the way up to the Breaker account, which costs 30 Sweatcoins a month but allows users to earn 20 Sweatcoins a day. Technically all the accounts are free but accrued coins will disappear if users stop using the app.
All in all, Sweatcoins seem like a great incentive to get yourself moving and are particularly exciting if the app is used in conjunction with games like Pokémon Go. As N iantic have promised us a Harry Potter version later this year it could be worth signing up to Sweatcoin now if you think you’ll be playing Harry Potter Go when it comes out.
For now Sweatcoin is only available in
Are you excited by Sweatcoins?
Via: The New York Times and Lifehacker
Follow me on Twitter: @ PatrickDevaney_
