The App That Pays You for Exercising, Sweatcoin, Has Raised About Six Million

After topping the charts in the App Store and making rounds through international news publications, Sweatcoin, the app that pays people for exercising, announced that it has successfully raised over $5.7 million in funding.

The announcement came after the app started gaining significant traction and finally went viral, topping the App Store chat and remaining in the iTunes’ top 5 apps of all types afterward.

At press time, the app is listed at number 4 of the top 5 apps available from iTunes.

The company was founded by four partners, Oleg Fomenko, Anton Derlyatka, Danil Perushev and Egor Khmelev.

How does Sweatcoin work

The app pays its users in digital coins, dubbed as Sweatcoins, in return for daily steps that the users have taken.

The Sweatcoins can then be redeemed over the app’s website for various products and services such as sneakers, healthy snacks, and books.

However, various users just value the psychological reward that comes with receiving the Sweatcoin after they have put in physical effort to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The app has been a success since it started gaining popularity by getting featured in numerous publications such as Forbes and Telegraph. It was also featured on news channels ranging from CNBC to Fox News.

Gaining momentum from these mentions that began from 2016, Sweatcoin has been trending as the top health and fitness app in the App Store since September 2017.

The app currently holds more than 2.2 million active users that utilized the app in this week itself.

So it uses a coin system, does it operate on a blockchain?

 It does not operate on a blockchain, and the Sweatcoin does not act as a cryptocurrency due to this reason. However, one of the co-founders for the app, Oleg Fomenko, expressed the company’s plans to develop these features for Sweatcoin so that it could have the potential to grow as a blockchain platform with its cryptocurrency.

For now, the company is focusing on meeting the rapidly increasing demand for the app and the work that it causes for Sweatcoin’s current 8-person team. The company aims to expand their operations so that Sweatcoin can continue on its path to be an app that is as successful as other innovative ventures such as Snapchat – which continued being a global phenomenon and is still known for its “filters” and “stories”, features that most of the other chat apps rolled out later after seeing their adaptability by the public.

It will not be a surprise if you start seeing “clones” of Sweatcoin which might be trying to capitalize on the original team’s hard work and immense efforts.

The clones may have improvements, or they may be exactly like Sweatcoin, for now, Sweatcoin seems to be a unique player in the field, and it would be interesting to see how it affects fitness routines in the lives of its users.

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Here Are Some Cryptocurrency Expectations for 2018

It’s that time of the year again where the world wide web is to be filled with start of the year lists. Whether it is about new year resolutions or predicting the future events of the year, you will find your go-to information websites to have at least one of them for your reading pleasure.

We thought it would be fun to compile a short list of our own that predicts how 2018 would look like for the cryptocurrency world.

Here are the industry’s top 3 predictions relating to cryptocurrency:

First, Bitcoin could rise to $50,000.

According to Spencer Bogart, a Bitcoin expert, the premier cryptocurrency could see a rise to $50,000 in 2018. In his interview with the Daily Express, Bogart stated that “I can’t tell you exactly what’s going to happen with price and neither can anybody else. But when I look out over the next 12 months, what I see is a significant supply and demand imbalance at the current price levels.”

He further explained that due to these factors, he thinks that “we’ll need to force the price higher.” “The majority of Bitcoin is again locked down with long terms holders. So there’s not a lot of supply available,”

Bogart continued. “And meanwhile, we have this new uptick on the retail side.” While this might seem idealistic for now, we need to keep in mind that people had the same notion about expert opinions in early 2017 that attributed to Bitcoin surpassing $10,000 in value by the end of year (Bitcoin started 2017 at a value of $974). It would be prudent to mention that it surpassed the psychological value of $20,000 just before 2017 ended.

Second, regulators will be ready to act.

If the last few months of 2017 were any indication, 2018 will be the year that the regulators will be looking into cryptocurrencies thoroughly.

What with the European Union taking initial measures along with other nations starting to take notice of this new financial aspect, it seems that this year will be full of discussions on how one could regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies along with it.

Adding weight to that prediction: French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire revealed in December that he plans to bring the matter to the table during the G20 summit that is to be held in Argentina.

“I don’t like it; it can hide activities such as drug trafficking and terrorism,” Le Maire had stated. “There is an obvious speculative risk, we need to look at it, study it.”

In addition to that, an Italian official, who asked not to be named, stated that Italy would be backing the discussion put forth by Le Maire.

Third, major institutions will be ready to join the cryptocurrency world

Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) got to be the pioneer in shaking off the stigma associated with Bitcoin and became the first major financial institution to hold Bitcoin futures. CME Group immediately followed suit with their Bitcoin futures and having these two institutions associated with the brand of Bitcoin was such a positive move that it paved the way for cryptocurrency ETFs.

As per reports, such ETFs could be available during early 2018. If everything goes smoothly, they will undoubtedly help cryptocurrencies in further establishing their reputation and providing for further stability and growth.

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