How Anti-Cheat Keeps Your Rewards Fair

For a location-based rewards system to work, it must be impossible to fake your location. Here's how GeoMine's anti-cheat and anti-fraud systems protect honest miners.

Why Anti-Cheat Matters

Without protection, bad actors could farm GM Points from their couch using GPS spoofing apps. Since every 1,000 GM Points equals $1 in Visa gift card value, fraud has a direct financial cost. Our layered system prevents this.

Layer 1: GPS Validation

Every mining session starts with a GPS coordinate check. We verify your reported latitude and longitude against the business's 25m geofence using the Haversine formula — the same formula used by aviation and maritime navigation.

Layer 2: Mock Location Detection

Most GPS spoofing apps work by enabling "mock locations" in the phone's developer settings. GeoMine detects this at the OS level and blocks mining if mock locations are enabled.

Layer 3: Device Fingerprinting

We create a fingerprint of your device's characteristics. Emulators (Android Studio, BlueStacks) have distinct signatures that real devices don't. Mining from an emulator is automatically blocked.

Layer 4: Heartbeat Monitoring

During a mining session, the app sends a GPS "heartbeat" every 30 seconds. Each heartbeat re-verifies your location. If your coordinates suddenly jump (impossible physical movement), the session is flagged and terminated.

Layer 5: Velocity Checks

We track movement between sessions. If an account shows mining at businesses thousands of miles apart within hours, it's physically impossible — and the account is flagged for review.

Layer 6: Behavioral Analysis

We track patterns across sessions. Suspicious patterns — mining at the exact same GPS coordinates (to the decimal) every time, or mining around the clock without breaks — trigger automated review.

Redemption Safeguards

Two extra guardrails sit on the payout side:

• 7-day account age: New accounts can't redeem GM Points to Visa gift cards until the account is at least 7 days old.
• $599 annual redemption cap: Each account can redeem up to $599 in Visa gift cards per calendar year, keeping the system within standard 1099 reporting thresholds and well aligned with our compliance posture.

Consequences for Cheating

• First offense: Session terminated, no GM Points earned
• Second offense: 24-hour mining suspension
• Third offense: Permanent account ban, all pending GM Points forfeited

The Result

Every GM Point earned on GeoMine represents a real human visiting a real business. That's what keeps the system fair for everyone.