Get Ripped. Die Mining
It’s that time of year again, when the tech world gathers in Austin, Texas and tweets, shares, instagrams and apparently now ‘meerkats’ the latest happenings at the SXSW convention. Until recently, Bitcoin wasn’t exactly a major player in the SXSW products, but this year Chaotic Moon Studio has unveiled ‘FitCoin’ – the app that pays you BTC to work out.
It seems pretty clear from the video that FitCoin isn’t going to shell out half a coin for every pushup that you do. It’s gonna make you sweat. The company wants you to really earn coins by burning thousands of calories, and to be honest, that’s a great idea. First of all, the more you work out the more you earn, which means you’ll want to optimize your earnings and will therefore want to work out more. The cycle continues as you really get in shape and start earning some serious coin.
The slogan at the end of the video says it all – Get ripped. Die mining. FitCoin appears ready to help you get in shape at any cost, and isn’t that the most refreshing part of this?
One aspect of the app is that it is only compatible with workout tracking devices that do both of the following: 1) monitor your heart rate and 2) provide public access to the tracking software. At first glance this seems like a good move for the app by giving it a direction, but really it limits the product to only a few wearable fitness devices. That list may grow in the near future as the wearable tech space expands, but then again, how many people are going to be working out to earn Bitcoins while wearing their $10,000 iWatches?
As Bitcoin becomes more mainstream every day, we will begin to see new apps that are mimicking innovative or simple ideas already implemented with fiat currencies that are applied to the cryptocurrency world. There are apps that motivate you to work out by paying you in dollars, so this is just the logical next step in the tech world. In fact, Fitcoin (as opposed to FitCoin) is already an app meant to pay you (fiat) coins for getting in shape. Apparently capitalizing the ‘C’ transports your product into the cryptocurrency world.
It was a logical step to take for the company to take this simple idea and apply it to Bitcoins. It’s also very interesting to see how other products will shift over towards cryptocurrencies in the continued effort to make them more mainstream. For the moment, however, I’d like to see how rich and ripped I can get at the gym… hopefully before I die mining.
