What you should know before you start.
The limits, the estimates and the ways this can disappoint you, written out rather than discovered halfway through a run.
Rates are a ceiling, not a promise
Every published rate, including Athlete at 15×, is the most a session can pay. Payouts come out of the Reward Vault, the vault is funded by swap tax, and a quiet market funds it slowly. If the vault runs dry, sessions keep tracking and rewards queue until it refills.
Capped, rate limited and revocable
Two rewarded sessions a day, 10 km counted per session, 30 minutes between them. Anything past a cap is logged and paid nothing. Rewards tied to sessions we judge fraudulent can be withheld or reversed before settlement.
Settlement is not instant
A finished session produces a claim. Claims are batched and settled into fractional positions, so the asset price you see mid session is a live quote at that moment and not the price you are filled at.
Location stays on your phone
Tracking needs location permission and works best with the screen on. Your route is recorded and scored by the browser on your device. What leaves your phone is a session summary: distance, duration, pace and the checks it passed. We do not upload your route.
GPS is approximate
Consumer GPS drifts under trees, between tall buildings and indoors. Fixes worse than ±35 m are discarded rather than counted, which means a distance we credit can read lower than a watch that keeps every fix. Treadmills cannot be tracked at all.
Heart rate and VO₂ are estimates
Heart rate comes from a paired Bluetooth strap where you have one, and is optional. VO₂ figures are computed from pace with the standard ACSM walking and running equations. They are fitness estimates, not clinical measurements, and no part of the app is a medical device.
Where the tax goes
A 4% swap tax. One point of that is the Pons v2 trading fee and never reaches us. The remaining three points split across the Reward Vault, the burn address and operations. Every split is published on the token page, and any change to them will be announced before it ships.
Holding is eligibility, not a stake
Your $GAINS balance sets which tier you earn at. It is never locked, staked, escrowed or transferred to us. We read the balance at the moment a session settles, so selling below a threshold moves you down a tier for the next session rather than clawing anything back.
Early software, small team
This is v1. Features described on this site can move, change shape or ship late, and the roadmap is a statement of intent rather than a contract. Breaking changes will be announced before they land.
The short version
Go for a run, get a few cents of a real company, hold more $GAINS to get more of it. That is the whole product. It is not a job, it is not a yield strategy, and it will not outpace your rent. Treat the rewards as a reason to lace up rather than a reason to buy.