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is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
Want to make real money just by clicking on virtual trees? Starting today at 1PM PT / 4PM ET, residents of the United States can begin an online hunt for golden apples in a cutesy web game — collect enough of them, and Cash App will send you a certain amount of cash. (The game’s called Cash Apples, and it’s an intriguing ploy (in partnership with MSCHF) to drive Cash App signups, with $500,000 up for grabs over the next five days.
According to the official rules, you can earn a max of $200 per day each of those days between 4PM ET and 8PM ET, for a maximum of $1,000 over the week — so while it sounds like real cash, no individual will strike it rich this way. Also, it sounds like the game won’t just let everyone in: you need to register your phone number on the waitlist. There’s also an alternate entry form, because Cash App has created the game as a sweepstakes.
It reminds me of when gobs of people started clicking virtual bananas because some of them were worth money.
Update, March 9th: We’re seeing a lot of “Unable to connect. Please try again” messages, but eventually got in — only to lose connection right after finding our first golden apple. It claimed we’d earn $2 if we could find three more of them.
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