STEPN: Sneaker Burns, New Users and the Game’s Future

• Beware fake GMT token on Ethereum, real asset is Solana-based.
• The game required significant upfront investments in NFT sneakers.
• GST airdrop still active through DappRadar.

STEPN (GMT) remains the most popular move-to-earn game, commanding significant valuations on its sneaker NFTs. The game requires a steep investment to enter, with players also able to mint new sneakers and sell them. 

The NFT have no floor price estimate, for more than 91K items based on Solana. The highest last sales reach 90 SOL, while regular sneakers are becoming too abundant. Due to the imbalance, there are rumors the game may introduce a sneaker-burning mechanism to increase rarity. 

https://twitter.com/StepnVasu/status/1531493070650236933

Due to the popularity of STEPN, the project has also seen attempts to exploit. A new GMT token has been created on Ethereum. This asset has nothing to do with the Solana-based GMT version and is not listed on exchanges. 

ANNOUNCEMENT:

⚠️ Someone made an ETH (Etherium) version of STEPN GMT.
⚠️ This ETH GMT is fake, just like the person who made it.

Thamk u.

— CM_Gilgamesh (@CM_Gilgamesh) May 31, 2022

At the same time, there is a legitimate airdrop for the in-game reward token, GST. GST is the game’s inflationary reward asset, which is also sparking worries of being unsustainable. 

https://twitter.com/DappRadar/status/1531500720775745536

The airdrop will end in five days and will award $500 worth of Green Satoshi Token (GST) to 100 participants. GST has fallen significantly in May, even faster than the trend of the bear market. GST crashed from a peak above $7.80 down to $1.28. The rapid slide of the token raises new issues with the STEPN game earnings balance. Solutions such as GMT rewards or token burns were also proposed.

STEPN Asks for Steep Initial Investment, Sliding Rewards

GMT is down to $1.19, from a peak above $3.80 at the end of April. For now, GMT avoids the worst price drop predicted before, which saw the asset depreciate to $0.50. 

The biggest problem for STEPN is that some players made significant upfront investments, often paying thousands of dollars for peak NFT sneakers to boost performance. With GMT and GST prices dropping, the game’s rewards may soon become unattractive. 

Other move-to-earn games are now appearing, with StepApp being one of the most widely awaited. But the model will have to prove itself and show the potential to retain users even with diminishing rewards.