Vape, Crypto Project PuffPaw Raises $6 Million

An upcoming vape-to-earn project wants to use token incentives and blockchain-enabled vapes to make nicotine addictions additions go up in smoke.

Called Puffpaw, the project intends to sell specialty vapes that record their user’s smoking habits on the blockchain. It will reward them in their tokens for gradually reducing their nicotine intake.

Puffpaw is among a cadre of startups betting on the yet-to-launch Berachain blockchain, a venture capital darling.

The quit-smoking project itself raised $6 million in seed funding led by Lemniscap Ventures. Lemniscap General Partner Shaishav Todi said the investment is a bet on decentralized physical infrastructure, commonly known as DePIN, according to Coindesk.

“By building at the crossroads of culture and crypto and health, Puffpaw is making DePin accessible and practical, and has huge potential for mass adoption, particularly given increasing consumer demand for health-conscious vaping solutions,” Todi said in an email statement.

Using token incentives to support healthier behavior isn’t new in crypto.

Puffpaw’s leader Reffo Tse compared aspects of his gambit to StepN, a run-to-earn app on the Solana network.

Puffpaw’s model attempts to create a self-supporting ecosystem of smokers who try and buy its products while weaning themselves of nicotine.

Users can only take a certain number of puffs per day from their specialty vapes. They earn more tokens for taking hits of lower-nicotine level vape cartridges.

They can then use those tokens to buy more vape cartridges from Puffpaw.