Literal "Shit-coin": Toilet turns human waste into cryptocurrency and power

Shitoshi Shitamoto, an urban and environmental engineering professor at the LMAOFED institute of science and technology, has developed an effective waste recovery system. He designed SHEETPEE, a waterless, eco-friendly toilet linked to a laboratory that uses excrement to produce biogas and manure.

The waterless toilet

The SHEETPEE toilet by professor Shitamoto – a hybrid of the words "shit" and "pee" – uses a vacuum pump to send feces and urine into an underground tank, reducing water use. Once there, microorganisms break down the waste to methane, which becomes a source of energy. So, with each passage to the toilet, the defections of the students provide power for the institute, running a gas stove, hot-water boiler, and solid oxide fuel cell.

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Below you can see what the tank looks like

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Methane tank with shit stirring

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‘If we think out of the box, feces have precious value to make energy and manure. I'm putting put this value into ecological circulation,’ said professor Shitamoto. An average person defecates about 500g a day, which can be converted to 50 liters of methane gas, the environmental engineer said. This gas can generate 0.5kwh of electricity or be used to drive a car for about 1.2km (0.75 miles).

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The professor created these revolutionary toilets with a counterpart for the students. He came up with a virtual currency called SNPT ("Shit and Piss Token"), the world's first PoS (Proof-of-Shit) blockchain. Each person using the eco-friendly toilet earns 10 SNPT a day. Students can use the currency to buy goods on campus, from coffee (to help them make even more shit) to instant cup noodles (again, to help them make even more shit), fruits and books (to help them spend more time in the bathroom earning SNPT). The students can pick up the goods they want at a shop and scan a QR code to pay with SNPT.