STEPN advertises itself as a Web3 lifestyle app with built-in Game-Fi and Social-Fi elements. Widespread speculation about a partnership with a major sportswear brand sparked the latest GMT token rally.
Stepping into STEPN
The move-to-win spree is hitting the crypto space. STEPN (GMT), a ‘Web3 lifestyle app’ that allows users to earn tokens by walking, jogging or running outdoors, posted a 138% increase last week.
STEPN, although still in public beta, has amassed over 100,000 downloads on the Google Play store and over 139,000 followers on Twitter. The game is currently running on Solana, but says it plans to expand its decentralized wallet to offer multi-chain asset deposits and withdrawals in the future.
To start earning Tokens, players must purchase or rent a pair of sneakers from the in-app marketplace using Solana’s local asset, SOL. At the start, players can only earn unlimited minted GST tokens. However, as players move up and level up their sneakers, they can start earning limited GMT governance tokens as long as they own and don’t rent sneakers.
STEPN’s tokenomic model is similar to that of the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity. In STEPN, GMT plays a similar role to AXS; It has a limited resource and is needed to level up and print new pairs of sneakers. GST, on the other hand, is more like Axie’s SLP; It has an unlimited supply, can be used for repairing sneakers after use, and is also consumed when sneakers are raised or pressed.
However, STEPN differs from Axie’s model by providing more use cases for the earnable GST token. In Axie Infinity, the SLP token was initially only consumed by generating new Axies. As more people started playing the game to profit from SLP rewards, supply outstripped demand and the token price plummeted. STEPN is trying to solve this problem by making sneakers degradable. That’s why players need GST to repair them and continue playing.
STEPN’s public beta only opened in December, so the flagship token model is still relatively unproven. However, this hasn’t stopped a few top venture capital firms from investing heavily in STEPN, as we covered in the Cryptokoin.com news. The app sold over 16% of the token supply in January, raising $5 million. Sequoia Capital India and Folius Ventures co-led the investment, with the likes of Solana Ventures and Alameda Research in attendance.
Why did STEPN (GMT) rise?
While STEPN has been steadily gaining traction since its beta launch, its recent rise is likely fueled by several additional factors. In a recent interview with the Solar Eco Fund, a STEPN spokesperson pointed to a possible partnership with a major sports brand. When asked if STEPN considers companies like Nike and Adidas to be future competitors, the spokesperson gave a vague hint about the project’s plans. “You’ll see we have an announcement about that very soon,” they said.
Speculation about STEPN’s upcoming partnership has run rampant on social media as many users search for clues in recent Twitter posts. In a March 29 tweet, commenting on the recent Ronin Network hack, STEPN shared a piece of art with several hidden brand logos.
Can you see the brand logos? / Source: Stepnofficial Head, Nike, Adidas and Asics trademarks of sportswear companies appear next to what looks like the Binance logo in the drawing. Some think a more significant partnership with Binance is also on the horizon, as STEPN used Binance’s token launchpad to sell 7% of the GMT token supply in early March.
The excitement for STEPN’s partnership announcement is palpable, but it is not yet clear whether the recent price increase is sustainable. While some viewers are already calling STEPN ‘the next Axie Infinity’, others are skeptical due to the large number of GMT tokens sold to institutional investors during the seed round. Unlocking future tokens for early buyers may also cause problems for those who buy GMT tokens at current prices, according to experts.
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