Walk and receive digital currency; What is the story of “STEPN” token?

For some time now, one of Solana’s network-based programs called STEPN has been making a lot of noise. In this program, users can receive digital currency in exchange for the steps they take during the day; But what is the story of this high-profile project and how to make money from it?

While user acceptance of the blockchain-based monetization (P2E) gaming industry has generally been affected following the $620 million hack of the Ronin network, another sub-branch of Gamefi appears to be ) is expanding and has attracted the attention of many users.

The Stepen project, which was launched by the Find Satoshi Lab team with the idea of ​​”Move To Earn” on the Solana network, has managed to earn $26 million in the first quarter of 2022. Stepan’s Monetization scheme is similar to monetization games, a program where users are rewarded with digital currencies based on the number of steps they take.

Shiti Manghani, one of Stepan’s senior managers, said:

As of mid-March, we had 100,000 daily active users, and that number has doubled since then.

While other monetized games provide an incentive for people to engage in online gaming, Stepan is emerging as a prototype in the field of gamify, which allows users to pursue fitness instead of sitting down and playing on their mobile or PC. Be fit and healthy and earn money in this way. In this new model, users buy special shoes in the form of virtual tokens (NFTs) and are rewarded for every step they take.

Stepan’s increasing success has side effects. For example, the STEPN 5K event is scheduled to take place during the Athens DAO conference, which is dedicated to Solana-based decentralized self-governing organizations. Dean Pappas, Project Manager of the Grape Social Network, which is helping to organize the conference, has announced that many Grape members are already using Stepen.

He says:

We are excited to show people applications that are related to digital currencies and have applications in real life. Stepan is one of the best examples that has succeeded in simplifying and integrating this experience. It is enough to exercise only 10 minutes a day and earn money from it.

The program rewards each user with its native digital currency, the Green Satoshi Token, for every step. According to data from CoinGekko website, the price of Green Satoshi Token has increased by 40% in the last 30 days.

In Stepan, just like Axie Infinity, users need to purchase an NFT to start their business and receive rewards. According to Menghani, the daily trading volume of Stepen NFTs on the Solana network is now around $12 million. The former CEO of the Breathe Happy fitness company has said that this project is attractive to users; Because “they don’t have to buy a £1,000 ($1,300) bike.”

Also read: Play and earn; The best blockchain games

Currently, the cheapest sneaker NFT available at Stepan is the Solana 11.5 Unit, which is equivalent to $1,000. Players must own at least one of the game’s expensive NFTs to earn money through running.

Of course, Stepan is planning a shoe-rental feature where users can borrow other players’ sneakers for free and share the revenue from running with them without having to buy expensive NFTs.

Pappas, the director of Grip Group, pointed out the need to launch this feature and said, “The price of Stepen’s sports shoes is increasing sharply.”

Renting digital assets in monetized games has been criticized for creating a form of “digital slavery”. In this situation, players who cannot afford the NFTs needed to play these games rent them from third-party lenders. Players play for long hours in this mode; But they get a small salary.

Of course, there are games that are free to participate in.

For example, in the Genopets monetization game, players earn digital currency similar to their real-life activities. Since there is no cost to make the NFTs necessary to play and earn tokens in Genopts, it can be said that this project has combined the model of free games and games to earn money.

Genoptes, which is currently only available as a test version, has been relatively less well-received so far. Jay Chang, one of the founders of this platform, said that the game attracts 30,000 players on Fridays and holds new weekly challenges, and is more popular on this day.

These figures pale in comparison to Stepan and show that people are more willing to pay to participate in projects with a movement model to earn money.