Crypto- and blockchain-focused companies across the globe have been making attempts to help people between the coronavirus pandemic, with some of them granting funds to nonprofits and giving supplies to hospitals. 

Israeli blockchain startup Orbs appeared with an idea to promote people to self-quarantine by utilizing a newly launched app. The app, which is named “Stay at Home Challenge,” is intended to ensure that the user does not leave the nearby radius once they record their location in the app. The app tracks users’ self-quarantine time and informs them when they leave the designated home area, according to a declaration on April 21.

A gamified way to trace movements

The app gamifies the self-quarantine concept, enabling users to bestow their progression with friends and family members, thus prompting them to stay at home as well. 

Although the app traces people’s movements, Orbs maintains that it doesn’t accumulate any personal data as users don’t attach their name, email, or any other personal data in the app.

Recently, the app is accessible in Google Play, and soon will be available for iOS users.

Orbs said in a statement: “We will continue to think of ways we can help out in Israel and globally to get us all through these challenging times. We discuss ideas regularly in company meetings and chats.”

Stay at Home Challenge is not the first app that traces users’ activity below the sunshade of the coronavirus-related quarantine. A team of academics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa produced a blockchain-based app equipped to enable users to verify their COVID-19 status. The application plans to enhance contact tracing of infected patients.

In late March, Russian authorities rolled out their tracking application for victims who test positive for COVID-19 in Moscow. The app reportedly demands access to users’ location, calls, and camera, as well as network information.

China also issued an app in February that enables users to verify whether they’ve come into association with a person who is probably contaminated with COVID-19. The app shares users’ location data to a centralized server whenever their barcodes are scanned at a checkpoint, either in public transport hubs or other access-point controlled areas.