If investing actual money into cryptocurrency isn’t your thing, consider investing calories instead. Sweatcoin — a free app for iOS and Android devices — allows you to do just that.
The premise behind Sweatcoin is simple: you earn virtual currency for a certain number of steps. When you’ve earned a certain amount, you can redeem your Sweatcoin earnings for a number of different rewards, including things like vouchers for yoga classes, fitness apparel, and Apple products (e.g., an Apple watch or a new iPhone).
In order to begin earning with Sweatcoin, you just need to install the app, turn it on in the background, and start walking. This means that you’ll need the app running for the duration of your workout, so make sure that your battery is charged and that you’ve allowed the app to access your location services before heading out into the great unknown that is your cul-de-sac.
There are a couple of minor caveats for Sweatcoin, the first of which is its overhead fee.
While you don’t have to pay to use Sweatcoin, you’ll only “take home” around 65 percent of what you earn. This is in part due to Sweatcoin’s fraud prevention services, so it’s for a good cause — just don’t count your virtual chickens before they compile.
Another issue with Sweatcoin is that it only counts your steps when you’re outside. If your preferred method of walking, running, or skipping (if that’s your thing) involves a treadmill, you’ll need a pretty long extension cable.
The final caveat is that, unlike other cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum, your earnings won’t compound. Sweatcoin is contingent solely on your activity, not on market behavior or current investments; if you’re looking to build up a crypto portfolio, this probably isn’t the ideal venue for you.
Of course, your body is perhaps the strongest asset that you can own, and investing in it is more likely to have serious long-term benefits than is investing in any kind of cryptocurrency. This is the largest benefit of Sweatcoin: it incentivizes you to work out and take extra steps (literally) long enough for doing so to become a habit. That’s hardly a downside.
If you don’t mind an extra few (thousand) steps per day, Sweatcoin is worth checking out.
