By: Jillian Godsil
Crypto AM meets Oleg Fomenko, co-founder of Sweatcoin…
Sometimes we need more than facts to change our habits. We may know we need to exercise more or eat less to lose weight and be healthy but without that extra spur the couch and packet of crisps may win.
Sweatcoin founder Oleg Fomenko decided to go for a run one day and found his fitness was on the floor. He could barely run 5k and he realised he needed to get back into shape but he needed help. So in conjunction with his friend and co-founder Egor Khmelev he came up with the idea of using gamification to spur on his desire for more exercise.
Now residing in Lisbon, Fomenko and Khmelev launched the app in 2015 in London winning acclaim for their unusual solution to encourage exercise.
“Some of the best solutions are born out of personal need,” he says.
“Before I had been very fit, climbing mountains all over the world with my brother, but I was now very out of shape. How was I to motivate myself to get fit again?”
Looking at behaviour science was the genesis behind the app. Fomenko understood that nature intended humans to save calories rather than squander them.
“We liked the idea of providing a spur to incentivise exercise and decided that finance was the a good motivator – and so the sweatcoin was invented.”
Back in 2015, blockchain was not as developed as it is today and so the idea was to create a digital currency in the app that could be used to purchase rewards or products in the app marketplace much in the same way as grocery reward points or airmiles. Today, seven years later, the company is approaching 100 million users and is launching the digital currency as a cryptocurrency this coming summer.
‘We did take our inspiration from Bitcoin and whereas Bitcoin is mined through computational power, Sweatcoin is mined through steps taken while walking or running. The currency is not backed by burning electricity but calories.”
The app has also proved to encourage people to become 20% more active and now boasts more than 600 companies offering deals or products payable in sweatcoins to this active community.
“It works. It pays to walk. Our mission is to make the world more physically active. We are a profitable company paying people to walk.”
One of the first companies to come on board was Vivobareffoot, a British shoe manufacturer.
“They want people to walk more and so do we. We were very aligned on the ethos. Then we partnered with healthy restaurants, nutrition brands, sports equipment and accessories.
“Oh, and 50 per cent of our users own dogs, so we partner with a lot of dog brands.”
The partnerships with companies interested in exercise and health make great sense. Sweatcoin delivers a very targeted community.
“Also users earn the coins so while they may get free or discounted goods, they know they have earned them and accordingly value the rewards. In return, brands get direct access to people who care about their product.”
Fomenko points to other benefits too. Physical exercise is better for mood and heath so families and healthcare providers’ benefit. People don’t need to go to the doctor so often, their life expectancy goes up, they live longer and pay more taxes, so the country benefits too.
“Maybe in the future you can pay your taxes in sweatcoin in an economy of movement – where your exercise is adding to the underlying GDP of the country.”
While the sweatcoin was inspired by Bitcoin, it was not until this year that Fomenko and Khmelev decided to go on the blockchain and create a freely tradable token. They also needed speed of transactions given the size of the community.
“We were keen to align with the philosophies of the founders and found great kinship with the Near Protocol founders. They have great tech and their ambition is to take Web 3 to the mass market – just look at their wallet creation, easily the most friendly on the market. We like the commercials but we also like the team as friends.”
The announcement that Sweatcoin was migrating to Near has already resulted in eight million wallets in one month.
“We have been building for seven years now. Our app is robust and battle tested. We can’t wait for everyone to get a wallet and when we do our TGE (token generation event) this summer, every Sweatcoin user will get crypto.”
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