Bitwlking, exercice nd the workification of everything - 0 views
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Aurialie Jublin on 08 Aug 16Very soon you will be able to earn money just by walking.A new app is about to be launched which will convert your steps into a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. With Bitwalking you simply generate money by walking. Once installed on your phone, the free app converts steps to Bitwalking dollars (BW$) that you can manage and use as you wish. The money you generate accumulates each day, and remains in your account until transferred or spent. This is presented by the app designers as a disruptive and revolutionary innovation (they usually are) but also one with a moral mission. It is proposed that it can help to improve health and happiness by encouraging more exercise. Also, it can improve the environment through pushing us into walking rather than driving and because it mine coins through human movement rather than via computers. (...) Even more audaciously Bitwalking is also suggested as a enabling freedom and equality. We believe that everyone should have the freedom, and ability, to make money. A step is worth the same value for everyone - no matter who you are, or where you are. What matters is how much you walk. The drive to do social good has been presented as central to the development of this new app with the creators including developing countries, such as Malawi, amongst their test sites. Sportswear brands, charities, health insurance companies and environmental groups are to be targeted for involvement in the Bitwalking marketplace where the virtual currency can be used to buy goods or trade for real money. Also, the data will be made available to advertisers(with security and anonymity safeguards, of course). I have previously developed an argument that self-tracking is contributing towards a reconceptualisation of exercise into labour. Here I suggested that the standardisation of exercise activities through tracking and digitisation and their subsequent accumulation into valuable (to advertisers, insurers and others) data means that