Axie Infinity pioneered the play-for-profit movement, and the project has inspired new Web3 apps that aspire to apply the earning model to their respective ecosystems.
The latest project to join the move-to-earning movement is STEPN, the Solana-based Web3 app where owners of NFT sneakers earn as they walk.
STEPN has programmed some factors that determine how much a person can make with their sneakers and the Green Satoshi Token (GST) is an in-game STEPN token that is currently trading for $7.30. Over the past 30 days, the token has gone up over 77%, but is it sustainable?
What’s interesting about the go-to-earn phenomenon is that it’s basically a form of P2E because it plays fitness with digital assets (sneakers). Regardless of how it is divided, NFT holders must participate in the application mechanics to receive the reward.
While STEPN may bring some serious dividends to investors now, there are already a growing number of competitors emerging and new earnings models could soon make it a fad. Playing to earn was the norm in 2021, but now this movement is just a shadow of what it used to be. This leads investors to question the sustainability of the profit trend.
Transfer to earn Dapps go EQ
Behavioral stimulation is not a new concept, especially in the field of health and fitness. In fact, SweatCoin, a project founded in 2018, was one of the first applications that would pay its users digital currency for their practice.
There are other coding fitness apps like Dotmoovs, Calo, and Step, and they each have in-app reward codes. This means that STEPN is not a movement leader, but it may activate it.
The project is currently in beta with new users needing a token to share. In the field of branding and packaging, STEPN has gained popularity among crypto critics and NFTs and has had an equivalent spurt of upward growth. Cumulatively, STEPN has amassed over 200,000 users over its lifetime at a constant volume. In the past seven days, more than 32,800 new sneakers have been minted.
On average, a STEPN sneaker can earn a user up to $20 a day, while a premium-grade sneaker can earn users hundreds of dollars at the current GST rate.
Similar to Axie Infinity, users must first make an initial capital investment to start reaping the rewards. There were 99,999 NFT sneakers available for the mint, but just like the Axie Infinity, users can produce their own sneakers during SMEs events (SME).
Currently in Magic Eden, a secondary market, the cheapest STEPN shoe sells for 16.56 SOL ($1628) and the most expensive is 300 SOL ($29,493).
There are a range of sneaker types, along with layers of traits and levels a sneaker acquires that influence how much they can produce.
The robustness of the cellular signal and the strength of the user’s GPS play an essential role in the gain. If the GPS or signal is intermittent, there is no guarantee that the data is logged, and STEPN relies on knowing how far a person has traveled to earn rewards.
2/n currently earning tokens (GST) in #stippenWalking/running requirements are very low. I earned about $40 with 10 minutes of walking a day, so it’s pretty cool. The only thing is that you need to go outdoors where the GPS signal is strong. This is how the steps for GST are calculated
– Smallfgy | TMA (small_veggie) April 17 2022
STEPN is currently in beta with new users requesting a code to participate. Through branding and packaging, it has gained popularity among crypto critics and NFT and has seen upward growth.
Cumulatively, STEPN has amassed over 223,500 users and currently dominates the go-to-earning scene in total market capitalization. The governance token, the Green Metaverse Token (GMT), is 20 times more than all the movement economy tokens combined making it a desirable bet.
Web3 Lace Up Racing Apps
STEPN is not alone in the race to be profitable, and recently the Step, a dapp on the Avalanche blockchain, emerged as a competitor aiming to tap into the $100 billion fitness industry.
The Step app has multiple token emissions with FITFI, governance token and KCAL being the in-game token to be acquired. However, the danger in issuing a token of any kind is that it becomes a void for value extraction. To mitigate the possibility of inflation, the Step will incorporate pools of tokens into its tokens and the burning mechanisms will remove the tokens from circulation indefinitely.
Unlike STEPN and Sweat Coin, Step will create a software development toolkit that provides others with the tools to build within its Metaverse. In this way, the software is more native to Web3 and can relieve bottlenecks that hinder overall product scalability.
Step App Memorandum valid
Step Protocol SDK is the basis of the file #fetify Economie.FitFi is at the heart of the $100 billion and $200 billion gaming markets. Developers, projects, and Fortune 500 companies will join FitFi, as they did with #GameFi.
pic.twitter.com/afSqNz2HRI– Step.App (StepApp_) April 23, 2022
It is still uncertain how these transition-reliant apps will fight saturation, and how their token mechanics can maintain a good price point once these apps serve millions of users. There is also a risk of a potential decline in active users because maintaining exercise regimes is more powerful than building habits and intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic rewards.
Since most of the go-to-profit applications require upfront capital, users must remain aware of the price action, the volatility, growth and saturation of the traffic economy, and the levels of activity required to break even or profit.
Turning physical activity into profit may become increasingly difficult if the for-profit ecosystem evolves and gains more popularity. As more users look to monetize their physical activity, this affects the price of the token and can increase the entry price. As such, these apps treat the manipulation of fraudulent exercise inputs as an exploit to maximize profits.
In theory, ‘go to earn’ apps are well designed with a focus on health and wellness. However, the success of these models stems from motivation and, in fact, the attempt to influence behavior to form habits.
Studies show that habits are more easily maintained through personal intrinsic motivation (which is difficult to quantify) rather than extrinsic rewards, so there are key factors to consider when investing in the long-term earning transition movement.
The opinions and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risks, you should do your own research when making a decision.
