Are Stepn & move to earn apps for real?
They are at least engaging and fun even if the risk of losing your investment is real
Stepn (Built on Solana)
Editor’s note:
Because of their ability to appeal to people easily outside of the normal orbit of crypto and web3, action to earn games including the promising “move to earn” STEPN have a ton of potential. It still has to be easy enough for novices to set up their crypto wallets to earn and to have actions tied to earning that are truly social and logical.
When owning the right set of “in game sneakers” (which are effectively Nft’s and which require a sizable investment of almost 12 Sol currently) it is not out of the question for people such as Nate to be making $300- $400 a day just from walking.
There is no question that this is insane and that such rewards are a bubble that is bound to pop in some sense, but the Stepn team can likely figure out mechanisms to limit the supply of in game $gst tokens and also limit minting of the sneaker accessories so that price drops are kept in check over the long term.
Even in the event of a significant flash price drop for the in game sneakers, demand would then quickly increase at the lower buy-in points and in turn sneaker prices should be able to climb back up.
As someone who was recently able to snag an invite code and start “walking to earn” I have to say that most of the game is pretty intuitive. Efficiency and resilience are by far the most important attributes to look for in buying and upgrading a shoe. (luck and comfort are not that useful currently)
Starting out the first few days I have been earning around 8 GST a day which is not a ton (around $30-40) as with a single shoe you are limited to 10 minutes of daily activity time and a lot more money is to be made once you have bought and or minted additional shoes that give you extra activity time to earn along with higher earning rates.
Even amidst a massive crypto crash especially in Solana (hello 50 percent decline in a week) the price of the shoe NFT’s which you are required to buy in order to play have held up decently and there is not been a rush or run to sell them as far as I can tell (this is always a risk and possibility) . All token earnings are directly transferrable to the Phantom wallet app and in turn fiat currency from there, but most people seem to be choosing to keep their currency in the game (As the game developers would prefer).
I will keep providing updates on my walking journey and likely organize a formal recap after a month of using the app that calculates net earnings or losses. Email me also if you want one of the coveted invite codes. (use Walk Forrest Walk as the subject)
My first shoe and the activity screen:
At The Three3 we are effectively working on an “eat and live sustainably” to earn concept ourselves. Perhaps, in the long run with the rise of accessible glucose monitors and other consumer wellness hardware, eat to earn can become even more personalized and science based in its rewards. (it helps to keep things small initially though for strategic and operational reasons)
Original funding announcement from January 2022:
“STEPN, a move-to-earn NFT gaming startup, has raised $5 million in seed funding. The startup rewards users for exercising, but it’s not quite free money.
This was STEPN's first fundraise and realized via a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) sale, the startup's founder Yawn Rong told The Block. The funding will help expand STEPN's current team of over 30 and further refine its product, said Rong.”
The move-to-earn concept seems to be catching up in crypto. In October, another Solana-based move-to-earn NFT gaming app Genopets raised $8.5 million in seed funding. But the app isn't live yet.”
A funny meme take on the power of $stepn:
A June 2022 Bear market update:
Stepn quickly has become one of the largest user projects in the Solana ecosystem although Stepn’s “move to earn” green satoshi token has dropped over 95 percent from where it was a few weeks ago.
However, this is not totally unexpected from looking at the tokennomics of the project and the downturn has just seemed to rapidly accelerate what was somewhat inevitable as user growth slowed. Also, banning Chinese users (was not really their choice) definitely accelerated things too.
Still earning $5-10 dollars a day just for walking with one of their shoes is not bad when you really think about it and a lot of people’s expectations were perhaps simply warped. I am eager to see what more social elements they end up bringing into the game too.
I think the future of “action to earn” is that it is part of marketing and user acquisition for a larger project or product. (our food and sustainability focused digital wallet would be our core product for instance) Tokenomics are simply very fragile to manage and when user growth and or user behavior changes rapidly all hell can break loose in terms of sharp price drops. (see axie for instance )
Perhaps, too there should be hard limits on the initial buy in price for digital assets with a gradual ramp up of what you can purchase. For example, Stepn users who spent thousands on a single shoe just to be able “move to earn” (myself included) definitely have a bad taste stuck in their mouth from effectively losing thousands of dollars just as they were figuring out how to best earn. That is not good brand sentiment for future correlated products although personally I am continuing to make time to move to earn as I should eventually be able to earn back my initial investment even at $5 a day.