There was a time when only professional sports personalities could expect to get paid to sweat.
OK, maybe porn stars too. And people who have hard manual jobs. Shut up at the back: This is my article, dammit.
A development studio in Austin, Texas, wants to change this with the introduction of its Fitcoin app, which will let you get fit and mine bitcoin at the same time.
Usually, crypto-currencies like Bitcoin require some sort of ‘mining’ to generate the currency, Fitcoin relies on fitness tracking to generate cash.
During exercise (or just a run to the pub) a fitness tracker sends data to the app which than uses an algorithm to work out how much currency the physical exertions of a user should be turned into.
When Fitcoin designer Grant Nichol ran on a treadmill for 40 seconds, his smartphone mined five cents. Not quite Dan Bilzerian money, granted: but it’s more paper you’d earn sat on your arse watching Family Guy reruns instead of hitting the gym.
At the moment the technology is still in the testing phase, but it does sounds like an easy way to get ripped and rich to us.
Fitcoin is designed to work with a variety of fitness trackers, including Mio, Jawbone 3, and Atlas.
