Stepn is one of the leading Web3 applications pushing the Move-to-Earn concept to the mainstream. The project is capitalized around an essential daily activity for most people – moving around, and it seems successful so far. The ecosystem has been rapidly growing since the public beta launch in December, likewise investors’ optimism for the governance token GMT, which rallied significantly in the past few days.
What is Stepn’ Move-to-Earn project?
The need or benefits of regular exercise cannot be emphasized, but some people hardly keep up with it. With Web3 technology, Stepn looks to incentivize basic health and fitness activities like walking, jogging, and running. The Whitepaper introduced the project as a Web3 lifestyle app with inbuilt GameFi and Social-Fi elements.
With Game-Fi, STEPN aims to nudge millions toward a healthier lifestyle, combat climate change and connect the public to Web 3.0, all while simultaneously hinging on its Social-Fi aspect to build a long-lasting platform fostering user generated Web 3.0 content.
reads the Whitepaper.
Users are rewarded with in-game or native currencies of Stepn, including NFTs like Gems. The project has two cryptocurrencies – GST (the game token) and GMT (the governance token), all of which can be used in-game or exchanged for real profit. Meanwhile, GST supply is unlimited, and it’s the primary reward token for users at the beginner level. On the other hand, GMT’s supply is Max at six billion and can only be earned from “Sneaker Lv30.”
How to play
In order to participate in Stepn’ fitness game, users need to buy or rent an NFT sneaker (Walker, Jogger, Runner, and Trainer) that fits their fitness level.
These NFT sneakers are available on Stepn’ in-app marketplace. The rewards distributed to users would depend on the type of sneaker they chose. After choosing a sneaker, users are expected to move outdoors and burn energy for rewards. The app uses GPS to monitor and regulate users against cheating.
Although the GST supply is infinite, it has several use cases on the platform to sustain demand accordingly. For instance, the GST token can be burned to repair, mint, or level up sneakers. Stepn is based on the Solana blockchain, and so are the gaming assets. However, Stepn plans to add support for other blockchains in the future.
Why is Stepn GMT soaring?
GMT has risen over 1,166% from 3rd March to the present, at the current price of $1.9 according to Coinmarketcap. More interestingly, the price skyrocketed over 194% within the past three days, raising the market cap to $1.14 billion and also the best performing/trending cryptocurrency in March. But what’s behind the sudden spike in the price of GMT?
Regardless the project is still in the public beta phase, the number of users and activities on the platform has been soaring. Daily active users on Stepn increased by over 6,500%, from 1,500 users in January to more than 100,000 at present. The booming ecosystem is naturally a growth factor for GMT; however, there could be more to it.
More recently, there were rumors that Stepn has a partnership underway with top apparel brands like Nike, Adidas, etc. The rumors came after a spokesperson for Stepn said that “they have an announcement about this very soon” when asked if they see Nike and Adidas as future competitors. Adding to the euphoria, Stepn also shared an image containing hidden logos of these top brands, including Binance.
Is Move-to-Earn going mainstream?
The growing traction in Stepn is pushing the Move-to-Earn space to the mainstream, which is a relatively new concept. At the moment, Solana blockchain has the most number of projects working towards the fitness path – Stepn, Genopets, Metz, and Fitmint. Avalanche, Fantom, etc., arguably doesn’t have any Move-to-Earn project yet.
We might see more of these projects in the future, even from brands like Nike and Adidas, which have already filed patents for metaverse-related products and services.
