How Walk-to-Earn Rewards Work
The mechanics behind earning rewards by visiting physical locations.
Walk-to-earn is a new category of rewards that incentivizes physical activity and real-world engagement. GeoMine takes this concept further by tying rewards to actual business visits.
The Mining Session
When you enter a participating business's geofence (a virtual boundary around the location, typically 50–200 meters), you can start a mining session. Here's what happens behind the scenes:
- GPS Verification: Your phone sends its coordinates to our server
- Geofence Check: We verify you're within the business's mining zone using the Haversine formula
- Anti-Cheat Validation: We check for GPS spoofing, mock locations, and emulators
- Session Start: If all checks pass, your mining session begins
Earning Rate
The base mining rate is 0.5 coins per minute. This is multiplied by the business's tier:
| Tier | Multiplier | Rate per Minute | 30-min Session |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 1x | 0.5 coins | 15 coins |
| Silver | 2x | 1.0 coins | 30 coins |
| Gold | 5x | 2.5 coins | 75 coins |
Heartbeat System
Every 30 seconds, the app sends a "heartbeat" to verify you're still at the location. If 5 minutes pass without a heartbeat (if you close the app), your session automatically ends.
Minimum Dwell Time
You must stay at a business for at least 15 minutes for coins to be credited. This prevents drive-by exploitation and ensures genuine visits that actually benefit the business.
Cooldown Period
After completing a session, there's a 2-hour cooldown before you can mine at the same business again. However, you can immediately visit a different business — there's no limit on the number of different locations you can mine per day.
The Halving Schedule
GeoMine mining rewards halve annually to create natural scarcity and reward early adopters. Year 1 distributes the most coins. Year 2 drops to half that, Year 3 to a quarter, and so on. The earlier you start, the more you earn.