Fitness app Moonwalk that pays crypto for step tracking raises $3.4 million from Hack VC

“I call it gamified accountability,” Caitlin Cook, head of growth and the face of MoonWalk Fitness, told Fortune, “Just trying to help people hold themselves to the goals they set for themselves.”

The app “gamifies” fitness by allowing users to challenge friends, family or strangers to daily competitions. The user who sets up the challenge can specify parameters including how many days the competition lasts, the daily step goal and how much each player must deposit to enter. Players can submit a deposit in USDC, Solana or Bonk— a Solana-based memecoin.

If you fail to reach the daily step count you lose your deposit and it is pooled and evenly distributed amongst those who did achieve the goal. If you successfully complete the daily challenges, you get your deposit back and win a portion of the pooled money. 

The app is built on the Solana blockchain and is easily integrated into popular fitness trackers like the FitBit, Apple Watch and Garmin. While MoonWalk will eventually be available on mobile, it is currently only accessible through a web browser. Once the mobile app is live, users will be able to buy credits with Apple Pay or a credit card in addition to a crypto wallet, Cook said. 

Crypto fitness apps have tried to capture a sustainable user base since as far back as 2015. StepN is a similar platform that requires users to purchase in-game NFTs to participate. MoonWalk differs from these other crypto fitness apps because it pays users with mainstream tokens rather than offering rewards with a new currency native to the platform, Cook said.

“I think MoonWalk is a little bit different in terms of game mechanics, where it’s very clear where any sort of winnings are coming from, and it’s directly from other players,” Cook said, “…It’s like the most liquid, highly used on-chain assets and soon it’s going to be supported by fiat as well.”

MoonWalk strives to appeal to a wider audience of non-native users by stripping away the complexities that come with using crypto. “The mission for the project and who we’re going for is very focused on the mainstream consumer and building a product that they’ll actually want to use and not be too intimidated by, having the blockchain part of it fall to the backdrop,” Cook said. 

The app taps into a broader trend known as “consumer crypto” – the adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology by everyday consumers for activities like gaming, fashion, finance, music, and art. 

“Moonwalk sits at the intersection of fitness and consumer crypto, unlocking an entirely new class of users. A slick mobile app will abstract crypto elements away from users, fostering simple onboarding and high retention,” Hack VC partner Roshun Patel said in a statement. 

Currently, the app only supports steps tracking but, Cook said, the company will use the funding raised in this seed round to expand the app’s capabilities to support all different types of fitness activities. The funding will also be used to continue developing IOS and Android versions of the application, she said.