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Playtness rewards fitness with cryptocurrency

Kirsten Doyle
By Kirsten Doyle, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 09 May 2018
The platform combines workouts with gamification.
The platform combines workouts with gamification.

Playtness, a fitness platform that aims to tokenise the industry, has started an initiative called the Playtness Alliance Platform, which gamifies workout routines and rewards exercisers with tokens that act as cryptocurrency in the fitness industry.

It also hopes to introduce cryptocurrency to the mass market by attracting new users.

The platform combines real workouts with gamification and blockchain technology.Transactions on the platform happen through Playtness tokens, which can be used to buy products and services on the platform, such as gym memberships and personal training sessions.

Niv Amar, co-founder and CEO of Playtness, says his company is one of the first decentralised blockchain fitness ecosystems that has been gamified and offers incentives to its users in order to prevent them from abandoning gyms and fitness goals.

According to Amar, gym quitters waste USD 10 billion each year on subscription fees in the US alone. "However, the greater waste is in the lifetime value of these customers because, once they quit a gym, they usually take themselves out of the fitness ecosystem altogether."

How it works

The company says biofeedback sensors within each machine tracks and monitors trainees' workouts, while the machines' API allows the platform to use the data in real-time, so that trainees don't need to count their own sets and repetitions or decide which weight to use.

In addition, an interactive avatar will visualise trainees' workout regimes in the form of a game, motivating the trainee to keep going. In between sets, trainees can engage in social tournaments with others. As users achieve their fitness goals, they earn tokens, and are rewarded for each training activity they complete.

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