The builders of “social fitness” app Looter are exhibiting how Bitcoin’s micropayment economic system can supply a substitute for the “freemium” model. It additionally employs a number of different Bitcoin options to show well being and health into an actual cash sport, letting its customers earn cash as an alternative of simply spending it.
Twetch has proven the way it’s attainable to show social media capabilities—e.g. likes, follows and reposts—into revenue for its customers. Reputation and high quality turns into a should when there’s cash to be made. Looter does one thing related with the health app idea. Relatively than pay for freemium-type subscriptions the place customers pay extra to unlock larger characteristic grades, customers would pay others and earn cash with micropayments to others of their community based mostly on health targets and achievements.
Customers may additionally promote their health and GPS knowledge to any firm wanting to make use of it—insurance coverage firms, well being researchers, sportswear makers, and extra. They might appeal to sponsorship from spectators, increase funds from teams for themselves or charities, contribute to and/or win prize cash from competitors swimming pools, and even gamble on race outcomes.
Bitcoin options add new dimension to health apps
Bitcoin’s conditional funds add new challenges and incentives. A consumer may commit funds to “loot boxes” marked by GPS coordinates alongside a route, and obtain the funds once they attain these milestones (or go away them for others). Transaction locktime options would permit funds to be returned if not collected—or ship them elsewhere. For instance, in the event you didn’t obtain sure targets by a sure time, the cash goes to a charity you want (or for added motivation, one you don’t). Looter the corporate would generate income by charging a small fee on transactions, as different Bitcoin apps do.
Founder Ben Adams is a daily coach and health app consumer, and got here up with the concept for Looter after years of expertise with present social health apps. His brother Angus pitched Looter on the second Bitcoin Affiliation BSV Enterprise Pitch Day occasion, a part of the CoinGeek London convention in February 2020, as Ben himself was booked to compete in an extremely marathon on the identical time. Throughout his presentation, Angus mentioned:
Likes & feedback present the dopamine hit that hold customers coming again for extra. Elevated engagement on social health apps has been proven to make individuals happier, versus sadder on Fb.
A lot of Looter remains to be within the conceptual stage however Adams mentioned issues have progressed since CoinGeek London 2020, regardless of the continued world upheaval. Learn our interview under to search out out extra about Looter and the way its founders got here to be concerned in BSV.
What previous experiences (with private health, health apps, and cellular funds) led you to develop the Looter idea?
Ben Adams: I grew up in a household the place train was all the time one thing that was valued extremely as a part of a every day routine. The important thing that was instilled in myself and my siblings by our dad and mom was that health and train opened up doorways to a large number of adventures that we may have within the outdoor which was actually what formed how I view health at present and why I nonetheless have interaction in it so often.
Strava then (which I’ve been an avid consumer since 2016) was the right software and actually is nice for participating with family and friends ({and professional} athletes) in your train actions.
It was fairly simple then for me and Angus (who I mentioned the idea with quite a bit) to see how Looter may enhance massively on the present social health apps. Though on face value Strava (and the others) are nice apps they’ve a number of large flaws, considered one of these is that they function a “freemium” model which isn’t in a position to generate income from day one. Due to this, all social health functions harass customers with limitless promoting, unrelenting strain to enroll to a month-to-month subscription and the profitisation of private knowledge. BSV solves this.
If Looter relies on funds between customers, how does your organization earn revenue from the system?
Ben Adams: For instance I may connect milestones to a route that you just ceaselessly run based mostly on time targets. I can allocate a specific amount of value to every milestone and in the event you obtain the time goal the milestone can be unlocked and the funds despatched to your pockets. Every time this occurs Looter will take $0.01 of the transaction value. There may be quite a few variations on this and is one thing that can be refined over time.
There are additionally a number of different choices to generate additional income on issues comparable to kudos been given or feedback being left on a consumer’s exercise. These could or might not be issues that we take a look at additional down the monitor.
When did you resolve to make use of Bitcoin SV (BSV) because the fee system and what appealed to you most about BSV?
Ben Adams: Myself and my brother have been concerned in Bitcoin since 2011 and have adopted the lifecycle because it transitioned into BCH after which BSV with all of the craziness in between. Whenever you sit down and logically analyse the basics between the 3x Bitcoins you realise fairly rapidly that BSV is the one choice that is smart—it’s the one choice the place the economics work. Inside these economics an important factor that BSV presents is the flexibility to scale, with out scale the entire ecosystem will ultimately crumble.
Due to this it turned a very simple determination to construct on prime of BSV. Alongside scale, Looter depends totally on the standard of the ecosystem to assist instantaneous micropayments between customers which is once more one thing that not one of the different digital currencies supply.
It might be flawed of me to not point out HandCash right here as properly. HandCash is creating an addition to their enterprise model known as Join. Looter can be constructed on prime of HandCash Join’s pockets service which can make our lives 100x simpler for the under causes:
- Sustaining a pockets could be very onerous
- Scaling a pockets to deal with multitudes of micro transactions is tough
- Making the pockets consumer pleasant and fool proof is tough
- Managing logins and consumer verifications to adjust to KYC legal guidelines is tough
- Linking to exterior cash suppliers to assist top-ups with fiat is tough
All of this complexity may be outsourced to HandCash, it’s a sport changer and can break down the boundaries not only for Looter however different functions creating on BSV as properly.
You (properly, Angus) confirmed a growth roadmap at CoinGeek London. How has that been affected by the present world surroundings?
Ben Adams: Fortunately COVID has not had an excessive amount of of an impact on our growth roadmap. We’re nonetheless within the early levels of growth, very near ending our POC (simply ready on HandCash to finish their SDK for Join). If something it has solely had a constructive impact on the technical growth as now we have had extra time at house with much less distractions!
Beneath screenshot exhibits the profitable implementation of milestones (inexperienced means the milestone was achieved, yellow means it wasn’t). The final piece of the puzzle is to connect value to the milestones which we’ll obtain as soon as HandCash Join is full.
CG: In any other case, how was the CoinGeek London expertise? Did the pitch result in additional discussions or alternatives?
Ben Adams: As you understand I wasn’t truly there however I did watch a whole lot of it on-line. From what I noticed and from what Angus instructed me, it was nice. I believe the conferences are extremely essential and so they go an extended approach to professionalizing Bitcoin. There have been some good audio system on the CG London convention and you may see the engagement rising increasingly with individuals outdoors the digital forex bubble—this could solely be constructive going ahead.
I clearly watched Angus pitch Looter and particularly paid a whole lot of consideration to the opposite two pitches. I believed Angus did an excellent job and though I used to be jealous to not be there doing it myself it was very thrilling to see Looter offered at such a big occasion.
There have been loads of constructive feedback concerning the thought of Looter which is encouraging. It hasn’t led to any additional discussions or alternatives however I’m not stunned by this contemplating that on the time of the pitch Looter was actually simply an thought on paper with little or no product to truly present. We’re a lot additional progressed now and as soon as HandCash Join is up and operating for testing on the finish of this month we can implement the final piece of the puzzle to having a profitable POC. At this level we will begin onboarding just a few customers to additional check the product and possibly then we’d have the ability to have interaction additional with potential buyers.
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