What is STEPN? All You Need to Know About STEPN

What is STEPN?

STEPN is a decentralized move-to-earn project built on Solana that uses GameFi and social elements to improve the daily lives of its users. The STEPN project is designed to be a lifestyle application that rewards users for moving outdoors to connect more users to web3 infrastructures and improve crypto adoption.

The design of the STEPN project relies heavily on NFTs in the form of sneakers that users purchase and energy that gets refilled consistently throughout the day. Users can walk, jog, or run to earn gaming currencies like GST and GMT by acquiring NFT sneakers and energy. GST is the gaming token of the STEPN ecosystem, while GMT is the governance token of the ecosystem.

History of the STEPN Project

The STEPN project was created in 2021 by Jerry Huang and Yawn Rong, who were interested in “X-to-earn” concepts in the crypto space. By the end of 2021, the project took part in the Solana Ignition Hackathon and came in fourth place, behind Rushdown Revolt, Portals, and Eizper Chain, partaking in a prize pool worth 45,000 USD. STEPN surpassed 500 other projects in the hackathon.

By January 2022, STEPN raised $5 million in a seed funding round, which Sequoia Capital India and Folius Ventures led. Some other significant names involved in the seed funding are Zhen Cao, Santiago Santos, and Solana Ventures.

By the middle of 2022, STEPN was bombarded with 25 million DDoS attacks by hackers who were determined to bring the platform down. This led to a network congestion that was later resolved by the developers of the project.

In 2024, the project aims to introduce the FSL Account system to build an interconnected ecosystem and introduce developments that would appeal to web2 users, onboarding them into the web3 space.

Core Components of the STEPN Project

Source: STEPN Website

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

The core of STEPN’s infrastructure is its Sneaker NFTs. STEPN’s move-to-earn ecosystem includes sneakers of different attributes that influence the earning potential, comfort, and durability experienced by users. The sneakers cater to various fitness capacities like walkers, joggers, runners, and trainers.

The NFT infrastructure also allows users to buy, mint, and breed sneakers in Shoe-Minting Events (SME). In these events, the attribute of two NFTs owned by the user is used as a blueprint to create a Shoebox that can be opened immediately.

When a Sneaker NFT is up to a certain level, users can unlock a “Gem Socket” feature that allows them to upgrade the attributes of their NFTs using Gems. The Gems come in four colors, yellow, blue, red, and purple, to affect the four attributes: efficiency, luck, comfort, and resilience. The gems also come in different levels ranging from chipped to enchanted.

Users can also customize their Sneaker NFT by burning the gaming token (GST), the governance token (GMT), or another NFT. This is done to increase the attributes of the target NFT, add more details, or change the name of the NFT. This feature is called Fusion in the project.

Game System

STEPN’s GemeFi design is a collection of smart contracts audited by Verilog Solution. The Game system comprises the achievement badge system, anti-cheating system, earning mechanism, energy system, HP system, mystery boxes, quests, and the tax or fees mechanism.

The achievement system is focused on challenging the users and providing validations in the form of badges for achievements attained. These badges can also be used as proof for future airdrops and perks. There are two types of achievements and badges: individual and meta achievements/badges.

The anti-cheating system fishes out devices that have been jailbroken, rooted, or OS-altered, and users who use GPS spoofing or hackware are at risk of losing their assets. The system has a set of 100 Turing points per user, and if users have been attempting to exploit the system, their points are deducted with each attempt. If the points fall below a threshold, those users wouldn’t be allowed to use some facilities like the marketplace.

The Energy system replenished the user’s energy by 25% every 6 hours and 100% daily. The earning mechanism determines the amount of tokens and energy a user can have daily through the energy and token cap mechanism.

New users start the game with a 2/2 energy and a 5/5 GST cap that can be upgraded to a max energy cap of 20/20 and a max token cap of 300/300 GST daily. There are no limits to the amount of GMT earned daily. Users can increase the energy cap by holding more sneakers and increase the GST cap by burning GMT.

The gaming system also features a health point (HP) on each NFT that starts at 100% when the sneaker is minted, and it depletes only when those sneakers are used to move. The HP and energy depletion rate for each NFT are affected by the “comfort” attribute of the sneaker NFT. The higher the attribute, the slower the depletion rate. To replenish it, users would need to burn GST and comfort Gems. The user would be unable to earn using that NFT without sufficient HP points.

The game system also has tax fees and royalties payable to creators of NFTs within the project. These fees include a platform fee of 2% and a royalty fee of 4%.

Features of The STEPN Ecosystem: Realm, Marketplace and Decentralized Exchange

Realm

Realms are forks of the STEPN project built on layer-one blockchains. It can be built on STEPN’s existing blockchain or a new layer-one, allowing users to interact with the same project on different blockchains.

These realms are given autonomy to decide their community culture, value proposition, and common laws that affect how royalty fees and energy are shared in specific conditions.

This feature requires the STEPN project to collaborate with blockchain to release new realms while providing a GMT bridge for cross-realm transactions.

The current Stepn Realms exist on Solana, Binance Smart chain, and Ethereum (APE Realm).

Marketplace

Source: STEPN Website

On the STEPN marketplace, users can carry out transactions with their Sneaker NFT, Badges, and Gems, such as buying and selling through the marketplace’s trading features.

The trading system allows users to buy and sell NFT Sneakers, Shoeboxes, Minting scrolls, Badges, and gems. Users can use Apple Pay to purchase the in-app currency (SPARK), which is not usable outside the marketplace.

Decentralized Exchange

STEPN’s ecosystem includes a multi-chain decentralized exchange (DOOAR) that allows swapping between users without an independent party, providing liquidity for trading pairs like GST/USDC and GMT/USDC and creating liquidity pools for other tokens.

The swaps would carry a 1% trading fee, with 0.3% sent to liquidity providers, 0.6% sent to STEPN’s ecosystem fund address, and 0.1% for future development efforts.

MOOAR NFT Marketplace

Source: MOOAR Website

MOOAR is a multi-chain NFT marketplace created by Find Satoshi Lab (FSL), the same developers of STEPN. The marketplace is built on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon to simplify and gamify engagement in NFT minting, trading, and engaging.

The project uses three significant features. The first is the MOOAR box, a reward both parties receive after a successful trade. These boxes contain NFT shards that can be converted to Bluechip NFTs when the appropriate amount of shards is gathered.

The project also utilizes Levelable NFT pets that grow as users engage with the MOOAR platform and the MOOAR minigame, which is still under development. The platform charges 2% on trades executed, with the option for royalty fees for creators.

Gas Hero

Source: Gas Hero Website

Gas Hero is a web3 game developed by FSL that allows users to create and customize heroes, join a clan, and compete against each other using numerous strategies.

The strategies revolve around power, wealth, and glory. Each component affects how users interact with other players. It’s a vast world structured like a branching tree, with different levels of hierarchy and complexity, and the game’s smart contracts ensure security and transparency, with a marketplace for trading game assets. The game also uses the GMT token to conduct buying and selling transactions.

What is the GMT Token?

Source: STEPN Website

The GMT token is the native token of the STEPN project. GMT means Green Metaverse Token and plays a major role in earning opportunities and governance. The STEPN project uses GMT and GST tokens.

While GST is the primary game utility token earned through daily movement, GMT is the governance token that unlocks higher-level earning opportunities

GMT is used to upgrade NFTs (at level 30) to unlock more functionalities and perks. The token can be earned through movement and staking, and the holders of GMT are given governance rights to make decisions in the project.

These holders can effect changes to the game mechanics, tokenomics, and platform development, and it has a fixed supply of six billion tokens.

Is the GMT Token a Good Investment?

The STEPN project is well-placed and funded to be a top contender in the move-to-earn space, and the GMT token is the native token for the project.

The token holders can earn actively, improve their health, and hold NFTs that would be appreciated as the project gains traction. They would also have the right to make decisions in the decentralized project, giving them the capacity to direct the project’s future.

Finally, with an active community, the STEPN project has long-term viability, and the holders of GMT tokens are set to benefit in the long term.

Risk Analysis

Advantages

The STEPN project promotes healthy living through exercise and developing positive habits, improving its users’ mental and physical well-being.

It uses a gamified exercise model to maintain engagement and improve user experiences, potentially increasing the user’s motivation. Finally, it allows users to earn cryptocurrencies from their daily physical activities, creating another source of income while building a community of like-minded individuals in its user base.

Disadvantages

Unfortunately, the STEPN project is subject to the same level of volatility prevalent in crypto. This affects the values of the Sneaker NFTs, Energy, GMT, and GST.

The decentralized project would challenge users not conversant with self-custody, which could lead to loss of funds and trust. This would also negatively affect the motivation of web2 users to onboard into the crypto space.

Challenges

Some challenges include the difficulty of scaling its Realms feature into other blockchains. The project would need to sustain its community and engagement for long-term viability, and it is still subject to the regulatory problems and hurdles faced by participants in the crypto space.

Although it has survived a massive DDoS hack attempt, future hack attempts are still possible, putting user funds at risk.

Competitive analysis

Another move-to-earn project that encourages users to be active and earn is Sweatcoin. While STEPN and Sweatcoin offer the same value proposition, they approach the solution differently.

First, STEPN is a decentralized project that requires users to understand how to use crypto wallets, NFTs, attributes, and cross-chain realms, while Sweatcoin is a mobile app that users can easily use with their phones and running shoes.

The STEPN project uses NFTs in addition to the native GMT token, which gives the users more value than Sweatcoin, which only uses the SWEAT tokens. The presence of the NFTs requires users to make an upfront investment to participate in the project, while Sweatcoin is completely free.

Since Sweatcoin is a mobile platform, it has fewer ways to move and spend the SWEAT tokens than Stepn’s GMT and GST, which has a decentralized cross-chain capacity, providing more ways for users to spend their earnings.

How Can You Own GMT?

To own GMT tokens and become a part of the STEPN ecosystem, users can follow a simple process:

Set up a Wallet

One way to own GMT tokens is to purchase them through an exchange. For this, the user must create a Gate.io account, complete the KYC process, and add funds to the account to buy the token.

Utilize the GMT Tokens

Once users have acquired GMT tokens, they can explore the STEPN ecosystem by purchasing Sneaker NFTs, purchasing energy, upgrading NFT attributes, governance, and earning on the move.

Useful References

For the latest updates about GMT, visit:

• The Official Website
• Twitter
• Telegram

Take action on GMT

Users can trade the GMT token here.

The article is original and has been checked for accuracy. If the article is accepted, the article is copyrighted by Gate.io.