HealthBlocks: Earning Crypto Has Never Been Healthier
Healthcare systems worldwide are not well equipped to help improve or implement preventative healthcare measures. We believe this is an essential element to expanding the (healthy) human lifespan through the sharing and analysing of health data. However, we also firmly believe that whether that data can be used is solely up to the individual.
Our role in reshaping the healthcare industry was recently featured in BTCMANAGER, which shed light on HealthBlocks' efforts to help people live healthier lives. The article highlighted our meeting with the Secretary of State of Health, Welfare and Sport of the Netherlands, where we had the opportunity to discuss the future of preventative health.
"With current health tracking devices, there is not much you can do besides view your data. HealthBlocks wants to move wellness tracking beyond view-only and allow people to profit from their health data and inspire them to improve their health in the process." – BTCManager
We intend to incentivise users through HEALTH tokens, which get rewarded when users achieve specific targets, such as 10,000 steps or burning extra calories by cycling to work. The tokens can be used to pay for health services, such as telehealth consults with a doctor or mental coach. There are 10 billion tokens, of which up to 20% are available for mining rewards.
"In most western societies, more than 50% of the adult population has one or more chronic diseases, more than half of the adults have obesity, and mental health problems are rising to alarming levels."
How we plan to revolutionise an outdated model
Currently, people can track their health data through wearables such as smartwatches and bracelets. The issue, however, is that the companies that own them retain the data and then sell it for profit without the user's consent. Users are also not monetarily compensated for their data.
Our project aims to counter this by giving users full ownership of their data - over 48,000 people have signed up to participate in our beta launch. Our dapp is built on the IoTeX blockchain, one of the world’s leading blockchain technology providers. Together with IoTeX we unlock the potential towards trusted health devices, highlighted by the launch of their Pebble tracking solution, which proves building trusted hardware is within reach. Data is generated and updated on the user's profile and then they have the choice of sharing their data or keeping it private.
“Solving the puzzle of living longer and healthier will result in prosperity, both from a wellness and economical perspective. Traditional healthcare needs to step out of the shadow of its own hospital buildings. However, the medical space is slow in evolving into the life of the “consumer” space.”
Sharing data earns users more HEALTH tokens, thus incentivising them to maintain a rich health profile with a consistent data stream. This makes shared data more valuable for both the user and the ecosystem partners that uses it for learning purposes. Who the data is shared with is always disclosed to the user. These can be health organisations and insurance companies that want to use the data to improve health solutions.
We believe that creating an ecosystem that generates recent and relevant health information is key to enhancing the preventive healthcare sector, as more health data provides new insights and discoveries that can hopefully expand the (healthy) human lifespan.