What is move to earn? How does it differ from play-2-earn? How could someone make money simply walking?
As an original move-to-earn project (we started in 2015) we feel that the description is fairly self explanatory. In the recent explosion of xxx-to-earn terms everyone has forgotten that the original term that it all started from was work-to-earn. And what unites “work” and “move” is that both of these actions are creating objective value to the one who carries the action as well as for other members of society.
How does movement create value? We have written a whole blog post about it. So if the value has been created then someone can gain this value by simply walking … provided that someone implemented movement validation technology to ensure data reported can not be spoofed or gained. And this is exactly what we spent the last 7 years on. That and acquiring more than 120 million users onto our platform.
Does Sweat Economy actually lead to healthier lives? Do you have any stats to back that up?
We ran a study with the University of Warwick in 2019 that demonstrated that the average user walks 20% more once they have downloaded the sweatcoin app. In addition, our pre-diabetes trial with NHS SW London in 2020-21 found that the average participant lost 1.1kg and increased their walking levels by 45%. Due to its success, this trial is being rolled out further across more regions in 2023.
Furthermore, our most recent analysis showed that those users who are actively engaging with crypto are showing an even higher increase in daily physical activity than those users who do not.
What role do you see web3 playing in our lives?
The reason why we were able to get to such a significant user base is because the desire to become more active is nearly universal. You know what else is nearly universal based on our research? Our users' interest and desire to engage with crypto. This is why we already have more than 15 million $SWEAT token holders.
This shows you that web3 and crypto already have mass-market appeal. Why? Because crypto is the new way we will all engage with money and financial products. We see a world where every single person will have their assets stored on their smartphone in their own non-custodial wallet where they control the keys and therefore nobody can take their assets from them. These wallets will not only allow these people to pay for their purchases at the touch of a button, but to also manage their money how they see fit - transfer it, earn interest on it, exchange it for other assets, etc.
Yes, you read it right. We believe that the future of web3 is MOBILE!
What is the biggest thing holding people back from using web3 today?
In our research we conducted last year we have learned that the two main issues that people have with web3 are:
1. Very complex user experience and vocabulary that makes people feel that “it is not for them”.
2. Big capital investment (~1,000 USD) in order to start LEARNING the ways of web3
With nearly 7 years of experience building amazing mobile apps with tens of millions of users we felt that we are in a great position to address the first point.
But where Sweat Economy comes into its own is on point 2 - our users can literally WALK INTO CRYPTO and only after they learn the ropes and understand how it all works they might (or might not) put some of their capital into web3. We literally made Sweat Economy the lowest-risk and easiest way to engage with crypto.
Do you think the FTX debacle will hurt the adoption of web3 & what lessons can be learned?
In the short term, most definitely - and this has already been seen with the ramifications of the losses, disappointment and fears reaching the mainstream media. We have not seen the full scale of ramifications which will undoubtedly go beyond a knock-on effect of BlockFi bankruptcy.
However, in the medium term we feel that it is actually a positive development - it will remove bad actors, clear out the space of projects that did not have utility or sustainable business model and were just creating noise, distracting everyone else. As with every bear market, this will cleanse the space and will let stronger companies shine for the next bull run.
The lessons that we pick-up from this story are:
1. The trend towards adoption of self-custody is going to increase further
2. Regulators will come on hard in many geographies and we need to be prepared
3. Instead of just waiting for regulators, we need to start thinking of a self-regulation framework that would encourage honest actors AND will create the right environment for whistleblowers.
Do you see a role for move-to-earn in the metaverse?
In the ‘metaverse’ not so much - as this is inherently ‘virtual’ by nature - although we’d expect movement-enabled VR tech to certainly innovate within this space. Our priority is the other way round: how do we take web3 into the physical world - connecting it to our real world habits and behaviors.
A virtual NFT sneaker is one thing, but a real pair of sneakers or other physical products and services in return for real-world movement is much more accessible and motivating to everyday users.
Perhaps some metaverse creators would be interested to encourage their users to be physically active and healthy, then we could be of assistance by accepting $SWEAT as payment they would send a signal to their users that they expect them to move not just their fingers, but their feet too.
