New App Incentivizes Millennials to Save By Rewarding Them With Crypto
*By Bridgette Webb*
Savings app Long Game is giving consumers a new incentive to save cash: cryptocurrency.
"It's a fun way to start getting educated about the markets and see where it's going," CEO Lindsay Holden said Thursday in an interview on Cheddar.
Launched in 2017, Long Game uses games and rewards to improve millennials' financial habits by leveraging mobile gaming and lotteries. Instead of a flat interest rate like most savings accounts, users are rewarded with coins for saving and keeping their balances up.
"We hope it will encourage savings and build the financial foundation that you need," Holden said of the feature that launched Thursday.
The app's [new](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/long-game-launches-crypto-rewards-becoming-the-first-personal-finance-app-to-give-consumers-no-risk-access-to-crypto-markets-300699779.html) cypto feature will reward users who meet savings goals with Ether, other forms of cyrpto, and special game coins. Those winnings can be applied to games of chance for prizes of up to $1 million.
The new feature arrives as saving rates in the U.S. have taken a dive. A reported [40 percent](https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-household-finances/index.html) of Americans are unable to cover a $400 emergency expense. Over a quarter of millennials and Gen Xers have nothing in the bank for an emergency, and many don't even consider saving for retirement.
It's a reality that Holden says is destructive for Long Game's target base. But she's optimistic her app can effectively change millennial habits ー mostly because it's fun to use.
"We are saddled with student debt, and more importantly the tools out there aren't working for us today," she said.
"What Long Game is trying to do is build something that works for our millennial audience, that has fun rewards like cryptocurrency, and we will continue to stay current and offer new rewards that are compelling," she said.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/long-game-launches-crypto-rewards).
Catching you up on what you missed in today's news. Elon Musk has increased his commitment to purchase Twitter to $33.5 billion, Apple is raising its hourly wages for retail stores to compete for talent, and Roblox has announced that it will be partnering with the medically prescribed video game ‘Endeavor’ to help treat patients with ADHD.
After learning that the suspect in the Uvalde school shooting posted about his intentions on Facebook, activists are urging social networks to make changes. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "The Facebook Narcissist," joined Cheddar News to discuss the role social media plays in school shootings. "They're not really invested in taking down hateful content," she said about social platforms."In regards to the shooting, it was 15 minutes before that actual threat. It would be pretty hard for a social media company to trace that threat that quickly. But what they can do better is take down threats and hateful content much faster and more than they're doing now."
Esper Bionics CEO Dima Gazda breaks down how they're creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it, and what this innovation means for the future of the prosthetics industry.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: Brightseed Co-Founder breaks down what plant bioactives are, and how they're using the latest technology to study human's biological connections with plants; Esper Bionics CEO breaks down how they re creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Capturing A Black Hole In Our Milky Way.'
The crypto industry is still reeling from Terra's recent crash. The company's blockchain was temporarily halted earlier this month after the collapse of its cryptocurrency Luna (LUNA) and its stablecoin TerraUSD (UST), which led to almost $45 billion being wiped from the tokens' market caps within a week. Now, many are left wondering what Terra's struggles mean for the broader crypto market. Reeve Collins, CEO of the NFT platform BLOCKv, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell from Davos 2022 to discuss.
China's largest ride-hailing company will no longer be listed on the world's largest stock exchange. Didi shareholders voted on Monday to delist from the New York Stock Exchange, less than a year after launching a $4.4 billion IPO with the most significant U.S. share offering by a Chinese company since Alibaba debuted in 2014. Since going public in June of last year, around $70 billion has been wiped from Didi's market value and shares of the company have dropped nearly 90%. Now, Didi is expected to begin preparations to list in Hong Kong. Kevin T. Carter, founder and Chief Investment Officer of EMQQ Global, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.