Americans are being offered cryptocurrency in exchange for exposing drivers who have missed car finance payments.

US crypto firm ‘Repo’ is paying out digital currency to anyone who reports late-payers – of which there are an estimated seven million in the country.

Repo is a mobile phone app where ‘snitches’ can scan licence plates. The app informs the user, vehicle lender, and a tow-truck if the vehicle belongs to a driver who has missed a payment. The tow-truck will then seize the vehicle and the user will be rewarded with Repo cryptocurrency.

The amount of debt on cars in the US is posing an incredible risk to the US economy at present.

Based on estimates, the average purchase price of a new car in the US is $35,000. The Washington Post reported that seven million Americans are behind on car payments, which amounts to roughly $245 billion.

Currently, the US total debt is around $22 trillion – meaning if Repo could reduce the debt on missed car payments by just 1%, it could wipe out $2.4 billion of the total debt.

One potential risk for Repo is that it only commands a daily trade volume of $100,000, meaning from an investment standpoint, it’s really illiquid.

This means that large market orders could send the price either way, very dramatically.

Repo price up by 1,900% since December

Since December 2018, Repo is up an astonishing 1,900% as it continues a remarkable upturn.

It is believed that the Repo project did not hold an initial coin offering (ICO), instead focusing on giving customers the ability to earn their own tokens through identifying tagged vehicles.

On December 17th 2018, it was trading at roughly four cents. By the time the new year arrived on January 1st 2019, Repo had surged up to 27 cents.

Its price fell mid-February before continuing to rally once again. Now on March 11th, it is trading at an all-time high of 75 cents.

The reasons behind the explosion in price remain unknown – however, it is a project that offers a tangible solution for tackling US debt if it can continue this uptrend.

Interested in reading more about the latest cryptocurrency prices? Discover the latest price for Bitcoin Cash with our price commentary.