Shalini Nagarajan

Sweatcoin, a move-to-earn platform that rewards users with crypto for the steps they take, has launched a new campaign that would reward one lucky individual $24,000 a year for simply walking each day.



The team said in a <a href="https://medium.com/sweat-economy/chief-walking-officer-win-a-years-salary-cef47c66ffcd" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog</a> posted Monday that it’s looking for a “chief walking officer” who will receive a monthly paycheck. All this person is required to do is walk an average of 5,000 steps a day, send a selfie to the Sweat Foundation every month and attend media interviews.



The “chief walking officer” title is just a prize draw, not an open position at the Sweat Foundation. Users wanting to enter the contest can do so via the Sweat Wallet app “for a chance to win the easiest paid role on earth, according to the blog.



Unlike Solana-based move-to-earn app, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stepn">StepN</a>, users of the Sweatcoin app aren’t required to make initial payments or buy an NFT to start allowing the app to keep track of your steps. Another move-to-earn platform, StepWatch, offers free NFTs for access.



Using Sweatcoin, the app gathers movement data, and rewards users with an appropriate amount of the platform’s native token SWEAT.



People looking to enter the prize draw should have a valid Sweatcoin account and wallet. They’re also required to stake 25 SWEAT in the wallet and pay an opt-in fee of 1 SWEAT.



People based in the US, China, Russia, Pakistan or any restricted location based on Sweat’s <a href="https://sweateconomy.com/tnc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">terms and conditions</a> are not allowed to participate. The Sweat Foundation’s internal team is also not allowed to take part.



Sweat Wallet is currently not available in the US due to regulatory restrictions, but is expected to roll out to US-based users from Sept. 12. That means US users can earn SWEAT, but are unable to transfer the tokens or self-custody them.



The prize draw runs from April 3 to April 16. A random draw will be used to find the winner within 7 days of the closing date. The prize won’t be paid out in fiat currency or SWEAT but instead in monthly installments of 2000 USDC or USDT.



Sweat Economy secured <a href="https://medium.com/sweat-economy/london-uk-july-26-2022-the-sweat-economy-team-behind-the-most-downloaded-health-and-fitness-71a57800a785" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$13 million</a> in funding last year from investors including Electric Capital, OKX Blockdream Ventures and GSR Ventures. The app says its goal is to incentivize healthier living by rewarding users for moving through “sweat coins,” which it calls “airmiles for steps.”



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move-to-earn

Move-to-Earn Platform Offers $24K Prize for Just Walking Every Day

Ornella Hernandez

<div id="highlights-block_62db1b3366d1a" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The company intends to leverage 5% of its platform fees to initiate a buyback and burn program of its green metaverse token (GMT)</li>
 <li>The price of GMT has increased by nearly 23% in the past 30 days</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Move-to-earn blockchain-based application Stepn recently <a href="https://stepnofficial.medium.com/stepn-announces-q2-profits-initiates-quarterly-gmt-buyback-burn-32ad0b764de9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">generated</a> $122.5 million in profits in the second quarter through its platform fees — which have made up a growing chunk of revenue, more broadly.&nbsp;



The company said in a <a href="https://stepnofficial.medium.com/stepn-announces-q2-profits-initiates-quarterly-gmt-buyback-burn-32ad0b764de9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Medium post</a> it intends to leverage 5% of the proceeds to initiate a buyback and burn program of its green metaverse token (GMT), a governance token that acts as a store of value. The announcement informed users that the buyback and burn process may take a few weeks to complete to avoid causing sudden GMT price volatility.



In the meantime, Blockworks’ Empire podcast hosts spoke with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/yawn-rong-4b4b1861/?originalSubdomain=au" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Yawn Rong</a>, co-founder of Stepn, about the company’s rapid growth and its efforts to shift from Web3 to Web2 to remain sustainable.



Rong said Stepn wants to first and foremost promote a healthier mind and body lifestyle by encouraging daily exercise via token incentives. While solana (SOL) is needed to purchase sneaker NFTs, for now users can only earn the green satoshi token (GST) while walking, jogging or running.&nbsp;



GST can then be converted into GMT or USD Coin. The more conversions, however, the more it drives down the price of GST, resulting in less potential earnings.



Once Stepn enters its next phase, which might be in the next six months, according to Rong, users may be able to earn GMT and trade on a “completely functional” decentralized exchange (DEX) and marketplace. Additionally, Stepn has an apparel and water brand in the works.



The upcoming buyback program may likely end up reducing the supply of GMT through scheduled burning. Additionally, the stability of the price of GMT will be dependent on the number of Stepn users, and the number of new daily accounts has been in decline since May, <a href="https://dune.com/0xpineapple/StepN" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to data from Dune Analytics.



Rong told Blockworks that about roughly 30%, or 210 million, GMT tokens have been completely burned. And they will continue to burn GMT until “we feel it is the time for people to earn the GMT.”



The dual token system is meant to have GMT earning counterbalance GST earning. GST has an infinite supply — it serves as an inflationary reward token that bears the brunt of the selling pressure from users cashing out the rewards. GMT, on the other hand, has a supply of 6 billion tokens and accrues value based on in-app user transactions and in-game utility functions.



Mike Dudas, founder and general partner at early stage venture capital fund 6th Man Ventures, which invested in Stepn, shared its faith in the app via a Stepn Telegram chat. “They have a roadmap and token model that aims to ensure balance over time in the ecosystem,” Dudas said, adding it&#8217;s “very easy to call something new a ponzi scheme.”&#8217;&nbsp;



Dudas appeared to be striking back at allegations from industry participants that the app, just six months old, is a ponzi scheme or even a rug pull waiting to happen. Dudas added it’s more difficult to defend a product when “public discussion isn&#8217;t really nuanced,” and the company won’t share the entirety of a roadmap “with hundreds of potential copycats waiting to pounce.”&nbsp;



Ryan Mullins, CEO of NFT (non-fungible token) sneaker game Aglet, told Blockworks he is skeptical of how sustainable the Stepn model is.&nbsp;



“Once the hype dies down and the new influx of players isn&#8217;t there anymore, it doesn’t work anymore,” adding that he views it less as a game and more about rewarding a healthy lifestyle.



On Friday, Stepn <a href="https://stepnofficial.medium.com/open-letter-recent-changes-d671fc28945e" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">released</a> a posts to address the introduction of “health points” to increase the lifespan of sneakers, and even admitted that these mechanic changes didn’t help the price of GST.



Nor did they yield instant results.



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Gaming

Stepn Founder Wants To Promote Healthy Body and Mind, but Skeptics Question the App’s Sustainability

Jack Kubinec

<div id="highlights-block_62c5f530d725b" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Axie’s weekly NFT sales volume fell from a $753 million high in November to $3 million last week</li>
 <li>StepN, an Axie competitor with a similar business model, has also seen its game economy collapse</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



When Axie Infinity reopened its cross-chain <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sky-mavis-reopening-ronin-bridge-with-enhanced-security/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ronin Bridge</a> last week, the game’s community was hopeful that users with renewed access to their funds would resume playing the game. Instead, Axie continued to hemorrhage users. About 368,000 gamers logged onto Axie Infinity last week, continuing a steady decline that began after the game peaked with 2.7 million weekly users in November, according to Axie Infinity co-founder Jeff Zirlin. 



Learn more: <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/can-gamefi-still-unlock-the-metaverse/">Can GameFi Still Unlock the Metaverse?</a>



The loss in value for Axie Infinity and its play-to-earn competitors has outpaced the recent downturn in the crypto market. Axie hopes to reignite growth by upgrading its gameplay, but some experts question whether play-to-earn games are sustainable at all.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/Axie-Infinity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Axie Infinity</a> has been likened to Pokemon with NFTs. Gamers battle each other using NFTs (non-fungible tokens) of monsters dubbed Axies to earn a cryptocurrency named Smooth Love Potion (SLP) which users can sell on secondary markets or use to breed more Axies. The Axie NFT floor price and SLP price tend to move in tandem.&nbsp;



Hailed for pioneering “<a href="https://a16z.com/2021/10/05/investing-in-axie-infinity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a new generation of games</a>,” Axie received investment from Andreessen Horowitz, and Binance led a $150 million funding round for the game following its <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sky-mavis-ronin-network-bridge-exploited-for-over-600m/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ronin Bridge hack</a>.



But in the wake of Axie’s 2021 bull run, the game’s economy appears to be in free fall. The NFT price floor for Axies, once $340, now sits at $6. SLP’s market price has fallen from a high of $0.40 to $0.004. The decline in NFT price, SLP value, and users are all connected, says Lars Doucet, a game developer and contributing writer for reports on Axie for the gaming research firm Naavik.



Axie Infinity monetizes “growth in users, which is a disastrous thing to monetize,” Doucet told Blockworks. SLP’s and Axies’ prices will rise as users join the platform, but “the minute there are fewer people added today than there were yesterday, that whole cycle unwinds.”



As earning potential dried up, many Axie players lost interest in the game. In the Philippines, where nearly half of Axie Infinity’s users are located, many gamers once treated Axie as a job and can no longer support themselves through gameplay, according to Doucet.



Axie Infinity is continuing to release game updates and hopes it can resume growth with a more dedicated user base.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Shakeouts are happening, but this is good in my opinion for the long-term community. We&#8217;re left with the gamers that love playing the game,” the head of community for Axie’s tooling partner told Blockworks.</blockquote>



Axie Infinity’s struggles, which predate its bridge hack and the crypto market crash, appear to be endemic for play-to-earn games.&nbsp;



StepN is a “move-to-earn” exercise app with a business model nearly identical to Axie’s. The Web3 app’s supporters believe it is more sustainable than Axie Infinity, because exercise is a beneficial activity “<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/04/why-axie-infinitys-co-founder-thinks-play-to-earn-games-will-drive-nft-adoption/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">regardless of financial rewards</a>.” Yet the price of StepN’s NFTs have fallen from a high of $1,400 in April to $90 today, and StepN’s crypto token has fallen from a high of $9.03 to $0.11.&nbsp;



Play-to-earn games need to be more realistic about gamers’ financial prospects, says Devin Becker, a Web3 consultant specializing in game economics.



The “idea that every single player can earn is flawed,” Becker told Blockworks via LinkedIn. “Players earn from other players, so some have to pay” if a play-to-earn economy is going to be sustainable in the long run.



StepN did not respond to a request for comment.



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