We made a bold move with our latest update — we decided to take “spare change” out of what was previously “Lawnmower: invest your spare change into bitcoin”.

The next step of Lawnmower’s evolution involves keeping it as easy as ever to passively invest over time while adding additional functionality like instant bitcoin buys & sells and advanced analytics on your trades & the market. Simultaneously, we’re re-structuring our infrastructure to set up for upcoming updates in international support & investment offerings.

We’ve replaced “spare change” with customizable recurring purchases over time — you can now customize a fixed amount ($) to invest on a weekly or monthly basis. To supplement your automated buys, you can trade as freely as you’d like with our new instant buy & sell features.

Along with this update, the app got a full design overhaul including brand new charts, an optional pin-code, a completely re-done sign-up flow that makes it easier than ever to get started, & even a fresh new logo.

The new version is now available on iOS (App Store) & Android (Play Store)! Give it a download and let us know what you think :)

To get a quick peak at some of the new screens & analytics, check out this recent blog post.

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Keep reading to hear more about the decision to move beyond “spare change” & some updates we have planned for the near future that we’re now much better positioned for.

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A few key advantages of the move away from “spare change” are:

- Investment Flexibility

- Operational Logistics

- International & Asset Expansion

Investment Flexibility

Lawnmower was built to be an easy way to invest over time.

Given bitcoin’s volatility, we wanted to distance users from dramatic exchange rate spikes with recurring purchases regardless of the price.

Using the “spare change” from every day purchases effectively results in purchases over time that are slightly variable in amount and time between.

“Spare change” is a cool concept that relates to daily life (spending) and popular programs, but we also see a couple downsides when it comes to investment planning & budgeting.

“Spare change” is random.

Without some serious effort with your spending, the “spare change” on your purchases will vary greatly. Without some additional serious effort with your “spare change multiplier” (a feature in old Lawnmower versions), your “spare change” per week or month will also vary greatly.

The inconsistency of “spare change” makes budgeting and allocating funds very difficult. Estimating an amount of “spare change” you’ll save next week or month is a very inexact science. Given that most bills, paychecks, and other investment contributions are usually on fixed time scales and in fixed ($) amounts, investing into bitcoin with a similar structure can be very helpful when considering your overall situation.

Even with our “spare change multiplier” tool, some minimum and maximum limits were effectively placed on your volume. Unfortunately, a “spare change” program is somewhat of an oxymoron if you’re looking to invest a large amount every week or month :p

A customizable recurring purchase with a granular $ amount input is a more proper way to set up a dollar cost averaging strategy — a well-known method for budgeting and investing — especially into volatile assets.

The new Lawnmower allows you to choose the exact amount ($) you want to invest in bitcoin every week or month — no more having to guess or wonder how much you’ll end up spending. Away from this automated base saving strategy, you can now also use Lawnmower to instantly buy or sell bitcoin with the same account linked to your recurring purchases for maximum investing flexibility.

Operational Logistics

Our “spare change” program relied heavily on receiving transaction data about user purchases from third parties.

Information delays amongst the involved third parties could cause potential delays pertaining to user dashboard transactions, icons, and even trades. The removal of “spare change” greatly reduces the chance of a trade ever being delayed and keeps the app much more up to date & less and less reliant on third parties.

Requiring the connection of a bank account, card, etc. to watch for “spare change” also resulted in additional sign-up steps and more account disconnection points for users.

The result of the change to a recurring purchase program is a much smoother, shorter, and less confusing sign-up process that leads into a more timely and straight-forward app.

International Expansion

We’ve been talking about expanding internationally for a long time & think bitcoin apps and companies should try to be as global as possible.

One of the largest obstacles in the way of this development was “spare change”. With our previous third party partnership and resulting infrastructure, we were unable to support non-U.S. bank accounts, transaction data, and currencies.

With our new recurring purchase infrastructure, we are beginning to expand into the many countries, currencies, and payment methods supported by Coinbase!

Simultaneously, we’re also working on expanding our investment offerings to provide exciting new portfolio allocation options representative of the broader blockchain technology space ;)

Stay tuned for more info on our upcoming updates & we’ll keep you posted as we go.

Thanks for all the support!

-Lawnmower