Use your computer's extra power to mine cryptocurrency—and help low-income people pay bail
People are used to rounding up their spare change or running lots of apps in the background of their computer. Two new programs are taking those well-known strategies and using them to support bail funds for people who can't pay.
Appolition, which launched Tuesday, lets users round up their credit card purchases to the nearest dollar and donate the remainder to community bail funds. It's like Acorns, but instead of investing your money, you're directing it to a cause. The name of the app is a play on abolition, a nod to its focus on racial justice and ending mass incarceration.
Bail Bloc, launched Wednesday by a team at The New Inquiry, takes your computer's spare power and mines a cryptocurrency called Monero, which is converted into U.S. dollars and donated to the Bronx Freedom Fund and soon The Bail Project. Bail Bloc runs on a complicated system, but you don't need to fully understand cryptocurrency or Monero to contribute—although it does come with a helpful cryptocurrency explainer for those who are curious.
Both projects arrive after a successful campaign to raise bail funds for black mothers last Mothers' Day, which inspired Kortney Ziegler to create Appolition.
"I was inspired to see collective crowdfunding for black folks and wondered how to create a technical platform that does the same thing," Ziegler said.
The projects support the same cause—making sure people aren't trapped behind bars because they can't afford a few thousand dollars in bail—but take different approaches. Appolition is a more traditional way to donate: with your own money. Bail Bloc doesn't require donating any money at all—just running an app in the background of your computer.
And since bail funds are revolving, with the money coming back when people show up to court hearings, the projects have even more potential to be long-lasting. Bail Bloc users will each generate between $3 and $5 a month, the project estimated.
Bail Bloc had 400 people running the program on its second day, according to the app's statistics. And Appolition got 140 sign-ups in its first six hours, Ziegler said.
"With enough downloads over time, the compounding revenue generated from Bail Bloc has the potential to help secure the release of tens of thousands of low-income people from pre-trial incarceration, which would diminish the widespread function of cash bail to coerce guilty pleas, restoring the presumption of innocence and allowing people to wait for their day in court at liberty," the project said.
Emma Hinchliffe is a business reporter at Mashable. Before joining Mashable, she covered business and metro news at the Houston Chronicle.
