【Original】Earn while running (M2E) The scenery is gone, and I will tell you the history of the decline of STEPN

The author once published an article about the investment potential of STEPN in June, and shortly after, the NFT of running shoes and all the tokens he held were cleared. Two months later, I decided to revisit the old place to see if the Move-to-Earn blockchain game is still alive. I have to say that the result is quite sad, let me tell you.

The author cleared the warehouse on July 10 and quit the game

As a player who joined after the "first" collapse of STEPN, I can say that I have witnessed the history of the rise and fall of this once Web3 chain game king. Before we start, let me briefly introduce that STEPN is a blockchain game under the banner of "earn while running". Players can earn considerable cryptocurrency while running or walking outdoors. Of course, there is no free lunch in the world. To start the journey of making money by walking, players must first spend some funds to buy the game’s running shoes NFT. The prices of these NFTs fluctuate greatly, and the cost varies from person to person, depending on when the player "enters the pit".

The difference in NFT floor prices from May to August is huge

STEPN supports multi-chain networks, and the author started the game on the BNB chain. I bought my first pair of running shoes on June 7th, which cost about 1.47 BNB (about $435). Remember that the first and second week had a decent rate of return, earning tokens to pay for food for a day. At that time, I had a whimsical idea: If I ran for 10 minutes a day, wouldn't STEPN take care of my breakfast, lunch and dinner? This is also great! It didn't take long for me to realize how naive I was, because STEPN was already on the decline at this point. The reward token for the game is called Green Satoshi Token (GST), which is a utility token. Players can convert them into other cryptocurrencies and stable coins, or use tokens to upgrade running shoes, so as to improve the efficiency of making money, that is, they can get more tokens while running. Despite the best efforts of STEPN's development team, its game token inevitably fell into a death spiral, while its governance token (GMT) is struggling to hold on.

Heartbreaking GST (BSC) candlestick chart

Maybe that's an exaggeration, but STEPN definitely gave me a strong "Ponzi" vibe. In a typical Ponzi scheme, the first batch of "investors" in the early stage can always get their principal back, while the latecomers often become the "last stick" of liquidity. STEPN has a similar situation. The players who participated in STEPN earlier have easily earned back their principal one month before the game. It's a pity that they generally reinvest the profits they earn, buying and minting more running shoes to earn more tokens, achieving the effect of "money rolling". That's how things often go wrong. Because the game can generate huge profits, it also attracted a group of people with bad intentions to settle in, set up robot running, and even set up a "factory" to cast and resell new running shoes. This has grown into a big problem, especially in China. The People's Bank of China announced in September 2021 that all cryptocurrency transactions are illegal. Obviously, STEPN is in a gray area. Just one day in May, STEPN suddenly announced through its Twitter account that they would no longer provide GPS services to Chinese users. To use STEPN to run and earn, players must turn on the GPS service when using the STEPN application. No GPS means no rewards, which can be said to indirectly block all players in mainland China. Thus, STEPN ushered in the first major collapse. Just a week after the announcement, the floor price of running shoes NFT dropped by almost 90% from the highest point, and the author officially started the journey of running to make money at this time.

Unlike other failed projects in the currency circle, the STEPN team did not give up, which is commendable. At this time, rumors suddenly spread in the circle that STEPN is about to expand the third chain, and it is related to "ape". Players began to speculate whether the so-called new chain was based on ApeCoin (APE) or Ethereum. It later turned out that a brand new third chain would run on the Ethereum public chain, called APE Realm, and all BAYC NFT holders would be able to claim a free running shoe NFT. However, this hype did not arouse excessive response. Most Boring Ape holders did not take it seriously, and some even bothered to receive free running shoes. Although the hype seems to have failed, the floor price of APE running shoes rose to around 2 ETH on the first day of launch, which is a good performance. (In the first hour after the airdrop, the floor price of running shoes was about 0.5 to 1 ETH, but there is no trace of this record)

The floor price trend of APE running shoes has fallen by 86% in more than a month. Players can also buy cheaper running shoes in the open market built into STEPN

Ape Realm went live on July 18, and its utility token, GST (ETH), traded between $3 and $5 on average in the first two weeks of its launch. Unlike the sensational BNB chain, ETH running shoes and token issuance are at their peak, and there is no chance of rising after that, only consolidation and gradual decline are ushered in. Judging from the history of the previous two chains, once the token price falls, it is difficult to recover again, and it is only a matter of time before the death is declared.

GST (ETH) candlestick chart

According to statistics, daily users of STEPN are gradually decreasing. Source: Dune Analytics @lightsoutjames

The number of new users in Ape Realm is also pitifully low. Source: Dune Analytics @ash1na

As can be seen from the above chart, STEPN is now very difficult to attract new users. Assuming that a pair of running shoes can earn 8 GST per day, it is worth about US$0.35, US$0.48 and US$3.50 in terms of SOL, BNB and ETH chains respectively. Assuming that to earn this measly $3.50, players need to pay 0.14 ETH (about $230) to buy floor shoes and insist on jogging for 10 minutes every day. If the token maintains its current price (although this is unlikely), it will take 66 days for players to get their money back. If the token price falls, the days to payback will be extended. High entry fees, unstable token prices, and unattractive rewards deter new users, and even discourage the idea of installing the STEPN program.

If you still really want to try running and earning games, the author recommends a free app that only needs to be walked - Sweatcoin. If you missed our previous article, follow this link to check out the Sweatcoin walkthrough:

https://www.coinlive.com/news/detail/?id=10066

Author: [Coinlive] Nell