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Date
2024-08-28
Step-Counting Wealth: Binance Invests $3.4M in Moonwalk to Incentivize Fitness Challenges with Crypto
Fitness app Moonwalk, which rewards users with cryptocurrency for tracking steps, raises $3.4 million in funding
Do you wear an Apple or Garmin watch to track your steps and strive to reach 10,000 steps a day? Now, you can get paid for it. Moonwalk Fitness, an app that incentivizes healthy habits by rewarding users with cryptocurrency, has raised $3.4 million in seed funding from major investor Hack VC, with support from Binance Labs, Reciprocal Ventures, and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal.
"I call it gamified accountability," said Caitlin Cook, Growth Lead and spokesperson for MoonWalk Fitness, in an interview with Fortune magazine, "just wanting to help people be accountable for the goals they set for themselves."
The app "gamifies" fitness by allowing users to challenge friends, family, or strangers to daily competitions. Users who initiate challenges can set parameters, including the number of days the competition lasts, the daily step goal, and the deposit that each participant must put in. Players can submit deposits in USDC, Solana, or Bonk (a Solana-based meme coin).
If you fail to meet your daily step goal, you lose your deposit, which is pooled and evenly distributed among those who achieve their goal. If you successfully complete the daily challenge, you can get your deposit back and win a share of the pooled funds.
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The app is built on the Solana blockchain and is easy to integrate with popular fitness trackers like FitBit, Apple Watch, and Garmin. Although MoonWalk will eventually launch a mobile version, it is currently only accessible through a web browser. Cook said that once the mobile app is live, users will be able to purchase points with Apple Pay or credit cards, as well as use cryptocurrency wallets.
Crypto fitness apps have been trying to attract a sustainable user base since 2015. StepN is a similar platform that requires users to purchase in-game NFTs to participate. Cook said that what sets MoonWalk apart from other crypto fitness apps is that it pays users with mainstream tokens, rather than offering a new currency native to the platform as a reward.
"I think MoonWalk is a bit different in terms of the game mechanics, it's very clear about the source of any earnings, directly from other players," Cook said, "...it's like the most liquid, most widely used on-chain assets, and soon it will also be supported by fiat currency."
MoonWalk strives to attract a broader non-native user base by simplifying the complexity of using cryptocurrency. "The mission of this project and the users we target are very focused on mainstream consumers, creating a product that they really want to use, rather than making them feel too intimidated, keeping the blockchain part in the background," Cook said.
The app capitalizes on a broader trend of "consumer crypto" — the adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology by everyday consumers in activities such as gaming, fashion, finance, music, and art."Moonwalk is situated at the intersection of fitness and consumer encryption, unlocking a whole new category of user demographics. A seamless mobile application will abstract the elements of encryption, facilitating simple user onboarding and high retention rates," said Roshun Patel, a partner at Hack VC, in a statement.
Currently, the app only supports step tracking, but Cook stated that the company will use this round of seed funding to expand the app's capabilities to support various types of fitness activities. She also mentioned that the funds will be used to continue the development of the app for both iOS and Android versions.