Tag: Move-to-Earn

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China Crypto News GMT Token Markets Regulation

STEPN’s Move-to-Earn GMT Token Tanks 40% After China Ban

The Solana-based move-to-earn game STEPN saw its governance token GMT plunge almost 40 percent in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, following news that mainland Chinese users will effectively be barred from using the service from July 15, 2022. 

STEPN was forced to begin blocking mainland Chinese users in order to comply with Chinese crypto regulations, which regard foreign cryptocurrency exchanges that provide services to mainland Chinese citizens as being engaged in illegal financial activities.

Chinese Users Can Move, But Not Earn

STEPN’s decision to act now was likely triggered by the Chinese central bank’s recent warnings about crypto exchanges operating in China, which may lead to legal problems for members of their teams based there. 

During a Twitter Spaces discussion on May 27, a STEPN representative said that its technical team is based in China and that it is “targeted” by the regulations, despite the business itself not operating in China.

While users in mainland China will still technically be able to access STEPN, the GPS functionality will be deactivated, meaning those users will still be able to move, they just won’t be able to earn – essentially rendering the service useless.

In a recent tweet, STEPN affirmed its commitment to adhering to local regulations, saying the company “has always attached great importance to compliance obligations and strictly abides by the relevant requirements of local regulatory agencies”.

Australian-Based Startup Leads Move-To-Earn Boom

STEPN was founded in December 2021 by Jerry Huang and Yawn Rong and is based in Australia. The game allows users to earn crypto by exercising, which can then be traded for other cryptocurrencies or converted to fiat.

STEPN has led the recent move-to-earn craze in crypto, with more than 580,000 registered users, about 39,000 active daily users and enormous growth in the value of its various tokens in the early part of 2022.

As is often the case in crypto, STEPN has increasingly become a target for scams as it has gained popularity – in April, blockchain security watchdog PeckShield warned about the growth in phishing scams targeting STEPN users.

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Blockchain Crypto News Markets Tokens

New Move-to-Earn Token ‘FITFI’ Explodes Over 243% in Just Seven Days

The move-to-earn project Step App ($FITFI) has bucked the downward trend of crypto markets over the past week, posting gains in excess of 250 percent in the week since April 28. 

According to CoinGecko, the token was trading at US$0.24 on April 28 before starting its upward climb, recording its recent peak of US$0.67 on May 5 – a seven-day increase of approximately 275 percent. At the time of writing FITFI had retraced some of those gains but was still up significantly, trading at US$0.63.

Step App Lets Users Earn From Exercise

Step App allows users to monetise their fitness, compete with other users, collect NFTs and socialise with other crypto-minded exercise enthusiasts. According to the Step App website, it achieves this functionality by taking advantage of “the leading technology in metaverse, augmented reality and blockchain”.

Step App has a somewhat complicated economy, using three separate tokens – FITFI, KCAL and SNEAK: 

  • FITFI is the app’s governance token, which can be used for a variety of purposes including staking, conferring DAO voting rights and providing liquidity incentives; 
  • KCAL is the in-game currency users earn through exercise; and 
  • SNEAK are NFTs users can mint or buy using using either KCAL or FITFI tokens.

Move-To-Earn Is Latest Crypto Investing Trend

Step App is a part of the fitness finance (FitFi) trend to have recently emerged in crypto, where users can earn crypto rewards by exercising. It seems to be following a similar trajectory to the DeFi and GameFi trends before it: a few innovative projects create a new market segment, and then many similar projects emerge to iterate on the theme and capitalise on the hype.

The current leader in the FitFi space is the Australian-based move-to-earn project StepN, whose GMT token has increased in value more than 200x since the start of 2022.