Sweatcoin Is the Digital Currency You Earn From Training
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to get out of your house and move around a bit, the Sweatcoin mobile app can help you encourage you to get off your couch for a few more minutes each day.
The Android and iOS app tracks your steps every day and then converts them into a digital currency called Sweatcoin, which can be used to buy things like a Delta or PayPal gift card or iPhone X. It’s like mining Bitcoin, except “Mining” goes for a walk.
The app is free to use, but like most other things, there is one catch here: you need the app to run in the background on your phone and access your GPS in order to actually be recognized for the steps you have taken. It can be hell for your battery, but there is a battery saver mode that you can access in the app (with that, you will likely lose steps if you activate it).
Steps are also only counted when you are outdoors, so the entire treadmill time is not counted, and many users report that they are not 100% accurate, even without battery saver enabled.
It was suggested in Sunday’s New York Times article that, thanks to Sweatcoin’s fraud protection, users end up being recognized for only about 65% of the steps they take. FWIW, in my tests, I initially got acclaimed for nearly double the number of steps my FitBit registers for the same walk that, after the app runs its tests to confirm their legitimacy, left us with what I think is pretty accurate. It is clear that your mileage (literally) may differ.
Still at 65%, you can still get some rewards pretty quickly. Approximately every 1000 steps you take costs 1 coin of sweat. With 10k steps a day, you should be able to get the FitBit Flex (550 coins) in about 2 months, which can turn out to be almost four if you don’t get it all. Other prizes start at a much lower cost and can be claimed within days.
Also worth noting: the free “Mover” account only allows you to earn 5 coins per day. To earn more, you will need to upgrade to a Shaker account (4.75 swc per month), which has a daily earnings cap of 10 Sweat coins, a Quaker account (20 swc / month for a 15 swc per day cap) or a Breaker Account is CHF 30 per month and is limited to CHF 20 per day.
All updated modes offer a free trial for 30 days, and you can pay for upgrades by taking steps to keep any level technically “free”.