Are you wearing your Apple or Garmin watch to track your steps and trying to hit 10,000 steps every day? Now you can start getting paid. Moonwalk Fitness, an app that encourages healthy habits by rewarding users with cryptocurrencies, is backed by lead investor Hack VC, with contributions from Binance Labs, Reciprocal Ventures, and co-founder Solana Raj Gokal. raised $3.4 million in seed funding from
“I call it gamified accountability,” Caitlin Cook, director of growth and face of Moonwalk Fitness, told Fortune. “I’m just trying to help people stick to the goals they set for themselves.”
The app “gamifies” fitness by allowing users to challenge friends, family, and strangers to daily competitions. Users setting up a challenge can specify parameters such as the number of days the competition will last, a daily step goal, and how much each player must deposit to participate. Players can send deposits in USDC, Solana, or Bonk, a Solana-based meme coin.
If you fail to reach your daily step count, your deposit will be forfeited and your deposits will be pooled and distributed equally to those who reach their goal. If you successfully complete the daily challenge, your deposit will be refunded and you will earn a portion of the pooled funds.
The app is built on the Solana blockchain and easily integrates with popular fitness trackers such as FitBit, Apple Watch, and Garmin. MoonWalk will eventually be available on mobile, but for now it can only be accessed through a web browser. Once the mobile app launches, users will be able to purchase credits with Apple Pay and credit cards in addition to their crypto wallets, Cook said.
The crypto fitness app has been trying to gain a sustainable user base since 2015. StepN is a similar platform that requires users to purchase in-game NFTs to participate. MoonWalk is different from these other crypto fitness apps because it pays users in mainstream tokens rather than offering rewards in new platform-specific currencies, Cook said.
“I think Moonwalk is a little different in terms of how the game works. It’s very clear where any winnings are coming from, and they come directly from other players,” Cook said. -On-chain assets and will soon be supported by fiat currencies as well. ”
MoonWalk strives to appeal to a wider range of non-native users by removing the complexity associated with using cryptocurrencies. “The mission of this project and what we’re aiming for is very focused on the mainstream consumer and building a less scary product that they actually want to use, with the blockchain part in the background. ” said Cook.
The app capitalizes on the widespread trend known as “consumer crypto,” where everyday consumers are adopting cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology for activities such as gaming, fashion, finance, music, and art. Masu.
“Moonwalk sits at the intersection of fitness and consumer cryptocurrencies, unlocking a whole new class of users. The sophisticated mobile app abstracts the crypto elements from the user, allowing for simple onboarding and high retention rates. “Huck VC Partner Roshun Patel said in a statement.
Currently, the app only supports step tracking, but Cook said the company plans to use the funding from this seed round to expand the app’s functionality to support all types of fitness activities. It is said that The funding will also be used to continue the development of the IOS and Android versions of the application, she said.
