Great news for money fans: you can now get paid just for walking about. Amazing! Let’s quit our jobs and mosey through the city streets all day, earing a living!
Unfortunately, as you might have guessed, it’s not quite that simple. “Bitwalking”, the app in question, lets you raise digital money, or “Bitwalking dollars” as you walk. This isn’t quite the same as real money – few vendors currently accept digital currencies as tender, though Bitwalking is working to partner with charities and shops, plus its own “Bitwalking Database” to allow you to spend your hard-walked cash.
On the plus side, Bitwalking dollars are global, so can be raised and traded with anyone, anywhere. Via the app, you can raise 1BW$ per 10,000 steps walked. To put that in context, the NHS estimates that the average person waks between 3,000 and 4,000 steps a day, but someone looking to improve their health and fitness (and now, vast digital wealth) should aim for 10,000 steps a day.
Here’s a mock-up of the app:
Bitwalking is launching initially in four countries: Japan, Malawi, Kenya and the United Kingdom. At the moment, you can apply to downloaded app on the Bitwalking site. These applications are then gradually approved, and a certain number of invites are sent out each week.
On the site’s FAQ, it makes an important distinction: you’re not paid for walking, but are “generating money by walking on your own”. This hints at the app’s business model, which basically mines the data created by tracking where you walk.
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The Privacy Policy states that this information won’t be handed out to third parties, but that Bitwalking will use it to send you offers, infromation about events and contests. At least this caveat means the whole thing isn’t too good to be true.
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