On March 1st, Binance announced the latest launchpad project STEPN, which is a sports GameFi application that allows you to make money while walking and running. After the news was announced, many communities were discussing this application. BlockBeats wrote this introduction a few months ago and released it again for everyone to better understand STEPN. Ater the article was written, STEPN made some updates, please refer to the official information for details.
With the popularity of Play to Earn, more and more X to Earn will gradually become a trend. In the future, people's income will include a range of things we do in life, including playing games, learning, sports, etc. Move to Earn is a new earning model that combines sports with getting paid, and some users even say it's really suitable for takeaway workers.
Instead of simply cloaking decentralized finance in the guise of a game, or making players tediously click on pages with almost identical mechanics in order to incentivize them to earn, Move to Earn creates a system that connects the on-chain world more closely to the real world, and instead motivates them to exercise, providing them with passive income while also exercising their bodies.
Additionally, game developers have long looked to create interesting gameplay through physical movement, yet even though these games are fun, the true potential of mobile gaming may still not be fully realized. Perhaps the best solution to this problem is Move to Earn, which combines the earlier Move to Play with the now popular Play to Earn. What could be more exciting than playing and earning while exercising through your phone or wearable device?
What is STEPN
STEPN is a Move to Earn NFT game on mobile devices that requires players to walk, jog or run outdoors wearing "NFT sneakers" to earn rewards. It combines blockchain gaming with real-life mobile devices and aims to move millions of people towards a healthier, low-carbon lifestyle and bring them into the world of Web 3 as well as making a positive contribution to carbon offset.
Created by the Find Satoshi Lab team and running on the Solana network, STEPN reconstructs the symbiotic relationship between users' physical activity and the blockchain game. The project uses players' movement data as a series of gamification inputs that transfer into Token and NFT rewards for players in the on-chain game. In addition, STEPN came in fourth place in the GameFi category of Solana's Ignition Hackathon.
Meanwhile, STEPN is constantly bridging the gap between crypto and non-crypto gamers in order to be applicable to all players, regardless of their past experience with decentralized applications (Dapp) or crypto games, keeping its gameplay as user-friendly as possible. Thus, by attracting a large number of non-crypto players, this is key to achieving continued user growth for STEPN in the future.
NFT Assets：Sneaker、Shoebox and Gems
1）Sneaker and Shoebox
Sneaker「Running Shoes」and「Shoebox」are all assets of STEPN Game，Player could wearing Sneaker walking、jogging or running to earn rewards.Through Shoebox, players have chance to get four different type of Sneaker: Walker、Jogger、Runner and Trainer, Which are fit with different speed.Players earn GST Token by expend energy while wearing different types of sneakers at the appropriate speed.
The initial energy with 2 points, The player starts the game at 2/2 . The upper limit of energy is 20.The Players can increase their energy by getting more sneakers, and the energy increased amounts will depend on the quality of the sneakers.
STEPN Team have given away 10,000 free NFT assets, which including sneakers or shoeboxes, to early players through some campaigns. New players can purchase sneakers or shoeboxes through the Magic Eden NFT market on the Solana chain, as well as STEPN APP. The current floor price of STEPN is 9.6 SOL, and the average price is 10.15 SOL. The total transaction volume has exceeded 10760 SOL.
2）How to get Sneaker
Firstly, players need to download the STEPN App from STEPN Offical website. Go into the official Discord community and create an invitation link, then Invite three people to get the invitation code. (Now, the beta app is open to all users. If you hold a STEPN NFT, you can download the app to play it).
Buying Sneaker or Shoebox through Magic Eden, export the wallet with NFT on STEPN App，then Sneaker/Shoebox will appear in the Wallet bar of STEPN App.Next, you need to transfer the Sneaker/Shoebox to Vault.
If you would like to transfer Sneaker, then it will directly show on "Shoes" bar.
If you transfer "shoebox", it will show on "Others" bar. Players need to open the box by themselves, otherwise it will open randomly.
Now, players are ready Move to Earn!
3）Gems
Gems are also kinds of asset of NFT Game, used to enhance sneakers' properties. At the same time, the gem also needs to be paired with the appropriate chest slot to use, and high-quality chest slots will further improve the gem's properties.
Gem has four types. Each colour gem represents one propertie: Blue-Efficiency; Yellow-Luck; Green-Comfort and Red-Resilience.
Each sneaker has 4 different treasure chest slots which match its gem colour. Additionally, each sneaker unlocks a treasure chest slot at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. The player inserts a gem into the slot to increase the gem's stats, which in turn increases the sneaker's stats.
10 Properties of Sneaker
We took Sneaker #3223 as an example, one sneaker including Type, Quality, Efficiency, Lucky Value, Comfort and other 10 Properties.
1）Sneaker Type
Walker, Jogger, Runner and Trainer.
2）Sneaker Quality
Each type of Sneaker is divided into five qualities: Common (Grey), Uncommon (Green), Rare (Blue), Epic (Purple) and Legendary (Orange). In addition, there will be some slight differences between the same quality of sports shoes, their quality attributes will be divided in an interval.
3）Optimal Speed
Each type of sneaker will have an optimal pace for reference.
4）Shoe-Minting Count
Two sneakers can mint a new shoebox, but each sneaker only mint up to 7 times.
5）Efficiency
In solo mode, efficiency determines how many additional GST/GMT tokens a player can earn on top of the base return of the sneaker——the higher the efficiency, the more GST/GMT a player can earn per energy expend;In Marathon mode, efficiency helps players get up the leaderboard faster, and the more efficient they are, the more sneaker points they earn.
6）Luck
In solo mode, Luck Value determines the probability of a blind box appearing in a player's treasure chest slot, which will contain a random number of GSTs, GMTs and gems (Lv1 - Lv4 only). Additionally, sneaker owners can also earn gems by renting out their sneakers to other players, and Luck is a highly desirable attribute for players who plan to rent out most of their sneakers to the marketplace.
7）Comfort
In solo player mode, the comfort level determines how often the player receives short/long term gains. Short-term gains are Token income/energy consumption boosts that last 1-5 minutes and occur randomly while the player is exercising, while long-term gains are Token income/energy consumption boosts that last 24 - 72 hours. In addition, short-term gains can occur on any sneaker between Lv1 and Lv30 levels and can be stacked multiple times.
In Marathon mode, only long-term gains can occur, which include cheaper Shoe-Minting costs, marathon point bonuses, and better sneaker rental opportunities in addition to revenue boosts. In addition, long-term gains can occur for any sneaker between Lv20 and Lv30 levels, but they do not stack with each other, and the new long-term gains replace the previous ones.
Comfort is an attribute that can strategically enhance gameplay, and using it well can help players progress faster than others.
8）Resilience
In solo mode, the recovery of the sneaker determines its durability. Higher recovery means better durability, resulting in fewer repairs, and even if the player does end up repairing their sneaker, they will pay less for the repair.
In marathon mode, high recovery sneakers allow players to run faster and farther without having to worry about the "wear and tear" penalty for sneakers with less than 50% durability. Thus, for players participating in marathons, sneaker recovery is an ideal attribute for player maintenance costs.
9）Durability
The durability of an athletic shoe determines the rate at which it wears itself out, and when durability falls below 50% and 20% respectively, the shoe suffers a "wear and tear" penalty, which reduces the efficiency of the shoe to 90% and 10% of its full value, respectively.
10）Badge
Sneakers with or without badges will provide them with additional attributes, such as extra energy for players in solo mode, increased leaderboard point bonuses in marathon mode, and lower costs when casting new shoes.
In addition, sneakers need to be upgraded up to a maximum level of Lv30. By continuously upgrading, players can unlock the appropriate features.
Players can upgrade their sneakers from Lv1 to Lv 28 by burning in-game GST Tokens, but the number of Tokens needed to upgrade increases exponentially as the sneaker level increases. Each upgrade will take a certain amount of time to complete, but players can also skip the upgrade time by burning more GSTs.
However, to upgrade sneakers from Lv28 to Lv30, players will need to burn the game's governing Token GMT in addition to GST.
On the other hand, players will receive 4 attribute points after upgrading their sneakers, and can choose which attribute to add them to the following sneakers respectively, and players will receive additional rewards for doing so.
Tokenomics
STEPN has two tokens, Game Token (GST) and Governance Token (GMT). GST is used for various in-game activities, such as minting new sneakers, upgrading sneakers, and upgrading gems; GMT is used for game profit distribution and high-end in-game activities, such as rebranding sneakers and premium upgrades.
GST has an unlimited supply and is minted when a user moves in Solo or Background Mode. GMT has a limited supply, with a total of 6,000,000,000 minted.
Players can earn a limited amount of GST per day, initially they can only earn up to 5 GST per day to start the game, and by upgrading their sneakers, players can increase the daily limit to 150 GST per day.
At present, GST can be traded on Raydium, 1 GST can be exchanged for about 1.63 USD, while GMT cannot be traded yet.
Additionally, in-game profits are voted in DAO fashion. GMT holders will decide how much of the game's profits are paid to them as a reward for carbon offset. At the same time, players will also gain higher voting power by locking GMT in the profit pool.
Project Progress
Since its establishment in September this year, STEPN has achieved rapid growth in the 4 months. According to the official website, the mileage on its mobile devices has totaled more than 73,000 kilometers, reducing carbon emissions by 19.86 tons. On social media, STEPN has also generated enough heat, with nearly 30,000 members on its Discord and more than 145,000k followers on Twitter.
Judging from the current user distribution, STEPN is advancing globally, with the majority of users in India and Southeast Asia for the time being.
Next, STEPN will continue to cooperate with some sports brands and wearable technology companies.
Summarize
In 2015, 15% of the U.S. population was already using an app to track their fitness activity, according to research from PLOS ONE. And right now, there are more than 400 million exercise enthusiasts running apps around the world, and more than a billion people use walking, jogging or running as a form of exercise.
At the same time, due to the impact of Covid, people's awareness of personal health has increased, and the online fitness industry will reach an annual growth rate of 33% in 2021. Therefore, Move to Earn, which combines sports with the popular Play to Earn, undoubtedly has huge market potential.
In addition, STEPN will attract crypto users more easily by featuring the novel Move to Earn concept and its cool NFT assets. For users in the non-crypto market, especially those who have used the application to record their activities, they will not feel too unfamiliar after coming into contact with STEPN App, and are willing to enter the world of Web 3 as early adopters. There are even community users who said that it seems that they can use this app to earn extra income in the future, whether it is food delivery or after bankruptcy.
More importantly, STEPN has designed multiple attributes for its NFT assets, which greatly enriches the gameplay and fun of the game. In addition, by weighing the money-making effect between different gameplays in the game, players can explore their own game strategy, and these will also improv e the retention rate of STEPN players.
In terms of technology, STEPN also has certain advantages, such as how does the mobile device prove that the player has started to move and how far? How the resulting game assets are stored and protected from hacking, etc. Moreover, STEPN has also designed an anti-cheating system that uses GPS tracking, motion sensors and machine learning to conduct data simulations to prevent players from cheating.
However, the concept of Move to Earn is still too novel and needs to be verified by the market, and there are certain thresholds for players' understanding of STEPN and game operation, especially in the context of the gradual cooling of the current GameFi project, players still need to pay attention to risks, participate with caution.
