While Bitcoin slowly but surely forces its way into the mainstream, that hasn’t stopped numerous developers from coming up with new altcoins to try and steal its crown as top dog of the digital currencies.

The likes of Dogecoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Peercoin and Terracoin have been slugging it out for the “number 2” spot for some time already, but now a new digital coin has thrown down the gauntlet. But what differentiates MangoCoinz from the rest is the way its mined  – miners have to actually break a sweat.

MangoCoinz started life as a computer science project by three students at Belgrade’s School of Computing. The trio thought there should be a better way to mine cryptocurrency, without having to use powerful computing machines to solve pointless algorithms (and waste tons of energy in the process). Instead, they came up with the idea of performing actual, physical work to mine MangoCoinz.

Will it work (out)?

You can download the MangoCoinz app on Google Play for free. Creating an account is easy, just think of an awesome username, a hard to guess password, enter your email address and submit. You’ll need to verify your account to activate it of course, but after that all you have to do is ‘get jiggy with it’ to generate some MangoCoinz.

That’s because, in order to mine MangoCoinz, your phone must be in constant motion. The app uses the motion sensors built into your phone, like the accelerometer, to mine coins. The more you move, the more coins will be generated.

This new cryptocurrency got me interested so I tried it out. Just by walking while holding my phone I generated some coins, about 0.02xxx, and that’s just by taking five or so steps. So a brisk walk or a full body workout could quickly see you rack up those coinz.,

Out of curiosity, I began to shake my phone vigorously for about ten seconds. I was able to generate a full coin just by doing that. And that seems to be the downfall of MangoCoinz right there – it’s easy to cheat, and most people are very lazy. It doesn’t take a genius to realize they could generate a small fortune in coinz by strapping their phone to the overhead fan and letting it whizz round all day, for example.

A flawed concept

Sadly, the developer’s ‘proof-of-sweat’ idea is not flawless. You can do so many things to make your phone and MangoCoinz think that you’re doing something productive when in fact you’re doing anything but, but the unnamed creators of this cryptocurrency have at least placed a limit as to how much coins you can mine per day to thwart any abusers.

According to the creators, only 10 MangoCoinz can be mined per day, per account. To make this valid, the user needs to sync the mined coins so they can be sent to another user. The problem with this is that even if the mining has a daily limit, what’s stopping people from creating multiple accounts, mine, and just send the synced coins to their main account?

Another problem MangoCoinz needs to address is how to prevent people from strapping their phones on fans, putting them inside a washing machine, turning them into a pendulum to keep it swinging and mining coins, and other movement-generating ‘activities.’

Some would suggest using GPS coordinates to verify a person’s movement or activities, and if the person is staying at one place and is still able to mine coins, MangoCoinz could prevent the mined coins from being synced to their system. But what about those using a stationary bike or treadmill while working out to mine coins? They will be penalized for doing honest work.  Also, hackers can easily manipulate GPS signals if they want to and make it look like they’ve been running around the block for the past half hour.

The creators of MangoCoinz stated that it was created for honest people, but as we’ve seen with Bitcoin, there are just too many dishonest people around for this idea to work.

How to possibly make it work

Jesse Heaslip, a board member of digital currency innovation and branding lab Humint, suggests that building a group dynamic might be the key to making this trust model work.

His idea is that individuals would have to participate in a trusted group, say a group of fitness enthusiasts who will then determine if they really have worked their ass off before they can sync their coins to be verified. After a period of time, once an individual has proven they really are exercising to mine coins, they’ll be allowed to mine on their own. But then again, who has time to do that?

Heaslip believes that MangoCoinz will work if it is tied to a health or insurance agency that can make people understand how exercising will not only benefit their health but could also reduce their insurance costs. “You can prove that people exercise that certain amount, which reduces your insurance costs. Thereby you should contribute this much to the project to ensure that it goes,” he concludes.

MangoCoinz is at a very early stage at this point with many kinks that need to be ironed out. It does have potential though, especially if it could be tied to health institutions, but the biggest question it has to address is its value. What is one MangoCoinz worth and where can people use it? As of now, generated MangoCoinz can only be sent to other MangoCoinz users, it can’t be exchanged for Bitcoins, fiat currency or even any other altcoins.