Shenrancaijing original
Author | Wang Min
Edit | Towards the small garden
In these years, can you still make money walking and running?
The recent fire of the Web3 chain game STEPN, is shouting this slogan out of the circle.
Simply put, this is a "Move to Earn" game based on the public blockchain platform Solana Chain. After users register and buy sneakers NFT, they can make money by running sports, earn more and earn less, which is related to whether they adhere to sports, the grade, attributes, and quantity of NFT sneakers.
If you want to earn, you have to run, and if you want to run, you have to buy shoes. On the evening of April 2, buy a pair of entry-level NFT sneakers in this game, the floor price is 8.4 SOL coins (Solana ecology tokens), equivalent to about 7500 yuan. The floor price of NFT sneakers will change with the rise and fall of SOL coins. Some players said that the price of entry-level NFT sneakers converted into RMB is basically in a relatively stable range.
Such an expensive pair of shoes keeps many ordinary users out of the door. But because of the money to be made, veteran players and running fitness enthusiasts who were once in the crypto circle have poured into STEPN. In order to "run and earn money", even some people insist on running every day despite bad weather, even on heavy rain and heavy snow days. As for the earnings, some advanced players who entered the market earlier told Deep Burn that their daily earnings in STEPN in early April could reach about $1,000. However, it is not easy to say how long the gains will last.
Following the fire of the metaverse concept, Web 3.0 has become a new round of eye-catching concepts. Compared with the Web 1.0 era, which can only read information and 2.0 readable and writable information, in addition to readable and writable information, the core of Web 3.0 is to achieve decentralization and return data ownership to the user itself. Its concept is still very unfamiliar to the public, but in the eyes of some VCs and practitioners, it means "the next era" and has long become a fragrant feast.
STEPN followed suit. Since the launch of the public beta version at the end of December 2021, it once ranked among the top in the global application market such as Australia and Japan, and according to the official website, its official Twitter account has been settled for 6 months since September 2021, and the number of followers has exceeded 160,000.
In the player base, there is information mentioned in the sharing of STEPN founder Jerry Huang, STEPN daily active users have exceeded 100,000 people, and the daily trading volume has exceeded Axie Infinity. The latter is another popular "Play to Earn" chain game, since January 2018 on Twitter, the number of fans has grown to 920,000 in four years.
Some people believe that STEPN has made Web3 a scene that can be landed in real life, which is promoting Web3.0 to become popular. But after all, Web3 is still just a tiny sprout, and every player who is ready to enter the market will inevitably wonder whether this STEPN, known as "copy fun step", is it reliable? Is it really making money, or cutting leeks?
Earn money while walking on STEPN? Some people invest 300,000 yuan, and some people wait and see
"At STEPN, can you really 'make money while walking'?" Bilion was skeptical when he first learned about the project. As a veteran coin circle who has been following Bitcoin since 2014, he began to pay attention to understanding the economic system of STEPN in the early stages of ITSN's launch last year.
In STEPN, users must have sneaker NFTs. Sports shoes NFT is divided into Walker walking shoes, Jogger jogging shoes, Runner running shoes, Trainer all-round shoes, corresponding to different paces during sports, such as Walker's speed limit is 1-6km/h. At the same time, according to the degree of rarity, it is also divided into gray, green, blue, purple, orange and other different levels. Purple shoes and orange shoes have not yet been officially released. The attributes of shoes are also divided into efficiency, comfort, durability, and luck.
As of April 2, the floor price of gray shoes was about 7500 yuan. The highest price of NFT sneakers currently on the market in STEPN is 10,000 SOL coins, equivalent to more than 8 million yuan. According to Bilion's observation, Jogger's green shoes have reached more than 20,000 yuan in early February. Moreover, in March, NFT sneakers were sold for 999 SOL coins, which was equivalent to more than 600,000 yuan at that time.
A market for trading shoes in STEPN Image Source / STEPN
Some users said on social platforms that they were blocked out of the circle by expensive shoes. Many players have calculated the economic account, and some players said after reviewing that even if players buy the cheapest shoes to "run and earn", the return cycle will take about 30 days to 45 days.
It is worth noting that with the sneaker NFT, there is also a limit to the GST that players can earn per day. Because the player's daily exercise time is limited by energy (recovery at a rate of 25% per 6 hours).
Users want to make more money, mainly through two ways: upgrade their shoes to get more tokens GST (game tokens, unlimited supply) / GMT (governance tokens, capped at 6 billion, high-level players can get it), or put their shoes or shoe boxes on the market to sell to get SOL coins, for cash. Two identical pairs of shoes can be Mint (synthetic) to produce new shoes. STEPN will be charged as the company's revenue according to a certain percentage of the market volume.
To change the properties of your shoes, you can buy gems. Crafting, upgrading shoes, and upgrading gems all cost GST. In other words, STEPN has an output mechanism and a consumption mechanism. But how much GST you can earn, in general, is related to energy points, running speed, as well as sneaker type, attributes, level, gem type, number and many other factors.
After a month on the sidelines, Bilion decided to try it. On February 5, he spent about 6,000 yuan to buy his first pair of gray shoes, and three days later bought a pair of green shoes, after which he continued to "increase his position", insisting on "making money while walking" every day, buying shoes, shoes and shoes.
STEPN interface in motion image source /STEPN
Many people enter with an "investment" mentality, but under the setting of the game system, they have become "sports maniacs". After he slowly became "addicted", Bilion also opened an account for his family. He told Deep Burn that the total family investment in STEPN has reached more than 300,000, the total number of family shoes is more than 70 pairs, and the daily sports income is converted into RMB, which is about 15,000.
Users punch cards after running Image source / Courtesy of respondents
The "price" is that he has to go out and exercise every day, and he has to stick to the limit time when the account energy is exhausted, even if the daily work is busy, he has to squeeze the sleep time to do these things. Before that, although he also had the habit of jogging, he often couldn't stick to it for three days of fishing and two days of drying nets. Nowadays, even in order to upgrade his shoes regularly, he has set a few alarm clocks to not waste a little time.
Australia's Gino also became a "sports maniac" because of STEPN. At the end of February this year, she registered stepn on the recommendation of a friend, and first bought a pair of green shoes and two pairs of gray shoes, and later bought new shoes, with a total investment of nearly 100,000 yuan.
Gino has sold countless shoes through "shoe raw shoes". As her account slowly escalated, she was able to exercise for one hour a day, earning around 200 GST a day, equivalent to $600 in early March.
STEPN Player Rain Movement Image Source / Courtesy of Respondent
"If you don't walk a day, you earn $600 less, so why don't you run?" Last month, Gino's area was hit by heavy rain for 14 consecutive days, but in order to "earn while walking", she did not interrupt her exercise, specially bought a raincoat, and went out to walk slowly for 1 hour every day.
By the end of March, GMT, the governance currency of STEPN's limited supply, was launched on the world-class blockchain trading platform Binance, and GMT ushered in a wave of growth. Gino sold a portion of the GMT first and recouped the cost.
The way to maximize revenue in STEPN has been figured out. In some STEPN communities, some people have specially made a small program assistant to calculate the return cycle, and single gray, three grays, one green two grays, and one green eight grays are regarded as a combination of new people who can maximize the income of new entrants. Players will also bask their own income in the group, and there are gold diggers with 14 pairs of gray shoes and 1 pair of green shoes (people who make money from the game) who claim that they have achieved a daily income of 3,000 yuan, while half a month ago they could only earn 800 yuan a day.
The player calculates the mini program back to the current cycle
Where there are interests, it is often easy to breed chaos. The "speculators" who do not have time to run, please call up the "substitute running". There are even large households that have entered the studio of STEPN "running and earning", and hired college students or runners to complete the daily exercise amount.
Crazy people know that there may be dividends in the early stages of a project, and it is easier to make money. But they're also discussing, does STEPN have a future? Will the efficiency of the income gradually decrease after entering the stabilization period, or will it be directly smashed into the hand?
But at least for now, their mindset is that they can earn a day is a day. "As long as you buy sneakers NFT, real money and silver investment, the mentality will change, will always pay attention to whether their wealth has shrunk."
Is the "running and earning" out of the circle the next interesting step?
The sought after STEPN has given Web 3.0 practitioners and players a fresh feeling. But in fact, similar products have appeared before and after STEPN.
Another blockchain game based on the "Play to Earn" model, Axie Infinity, was a hit last year and was once popular in the Philippines, India, Brazil and other countries, becoming a way for many people to play games to make money. There are reports that one player threw himself into Axie Infinity in July 2021 and earned $1170 a month. As for the game Axe Infinity, on July 30, the single-day revenue reached $40 million, which was 4 times the average daily revenue of the iOS side of "Glory of Kings" in the same period.
StepN, which appeared later, was in a sense one of Axie Infinity's followers. According to public information, STEPN is an Australian on-chain game developer, and the two founders, Jerry Huang and Yawn Rong, are both Chinese, and the former entered the game circle in 2008. Yawn mentioned in an interview that the team only began to think about new directions after seeing Axie Infinity, which led to STEPN.
But after the "Move to Earn" model created by STEPN became popular, imitators also appeared. Examples include the "Let Me Speak" model of "Learn to Earn" and the "Sleep to Earn" project in Singapore to make money while sleeping. However, these two projects are not yet mature than STEPN.
Just like the Web 2.0 stage, the HYIP model was once the entrance for Internet companies to grab users, and platforms such as walking to make money, watching videos to make money, sleeping to make money and other types of platforms have emerged one after another, and these models may also appear in the Web 3.0 era. "At present, Web3 is still in the early stage of construction, and in theory, a lot of Web2 things can be redone again," the Owner of the Web3.0 field said to Deep Burn.
However, Axie Infinity's countless imitation disks have fallen, STEPN can stand out in the "play while earning" chain game, is considered to be innovative in that "while walking and earning" and the real world combined, on the basis of making money, but also emphasizes the "social attributes", users can "run and earn" with real-world friends, sports punch card can also be shared to social platforms.
The island owner analysis said, "In the past, most of the blockchain games were set as virtual worlds and were overhead reality. These games are essentially a gamification of DeFi (decentralized finance), or a change in the chain of old games. Now the 'earn while walking' model breaks through the limitations of the game, allowing users to actually land this application in their daily lives." ”
Source / Visual China
Gino compares STEPN with Web 2.0-era games such as Journey to the West and the chain game Axie Infinity, arguing that STEPN is more convenient to operate and allows her to get rid of computers and earn money while walking in a healthy lifestyle. Bilion also mentioned, "The game's own fitness properties have also changed my personal real life. ”
However, STEPN, a new Web3.0 product, is also questioned whether it is a "fun step" cloaked in blockchain and engaged in Ponzi schemes because of the "walking to make money" model.
As early as 2018, Qubu had played the slogan of "sports can make money" to attract users with the publicity of "walking 4,000 steps a day, you can earn at least 200 yuan per month". But in fact, the promotion of Qubu is a pyramid scheme to pull people's heads. "Invest in promotion and develop the team, you can earn thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a month", under the system of dividends for the development of the downline, Qubu claimed that the user once exceeded 30 million.
In fun steps, only by constantly pulling new people into the game, the users who have invested before will have income, and this plate can be operated. Qubu has also been speculating on the price of virtual currency "candy" within the platform to attract newcomers to enter. The final outcome of Kidbu is that it was investigated for suspected pyramid schemes, illegal fund-raising, and financial fraud.
Although STEPN does not currently need to "develop the downline" like FunBu in the model to make money, the essence of making money is to earn tokens, and it is necessary for someone to continue to pay for the sneaker NFT.
In the Web 3.0 era, is "playing and earning" reliable?
A large number of users are waiting and watching, they are worried that STEPN enters the late stage of development, the efficiency of the income will gradually decrease, so that the latecomers will become the leeks of the high-level takeover, or eventually go to the collapse, becoming a drumming scam.
People who believe in a future for STEPN are still investing heavily. What they saw was the plan and vision that STEPN had released to the outside world. For example, it can reduce carbon emissions; in the future, it is necessary to push the rental system, which can reduce the entry threshold of players and so on. They firmly believe that unlike other "capital disk" founding teams hidden behind the scenes, STEPN's founding team, which has been in front of the screen for the past three months, has a higher degree of credibility.
Returning to rationality, players know that the longevity of STEPN depends on the health and sustainability of its "economic system".
In the Web 3.0 era, a game is equivalent to a virtual "small country", and the power and durability of operation depend on the construction and improvement of the economic system. The team can't be too interventionist, but it needs to be monitored in real time and macro-control.
As a product based on "blockchain technology", once the speed of new players pouring into STEPN slows down, the supply and demand relationship is tilted, and the player's assets will depreciate rapidly due to the weakening of market liquidity, so that the game's economic system will collapse; but if a large number of users pour in at the same time, it may coax up the price of sneakers, resulting in excessive prices and inflation, which will also make the game decline. There is only one result, and the sneaker NFT and GST in STEPN will become obsolete code.
Although many players believe that STEPN has been trying to "prevent bubbles", STEPN has not run for a long time, and whether its internal GST and GMT output and consumption can be balanced will be tested.
The safety of the product also directly determines the fate of players. "When a platform has an increasing volume of transactions, it may be targeted by hackers with ulterior motives." The island owner said. On March 29, Axie Infinity's Ethereum sidechain, the Ronin Network, announced that it had been hacked, resulting in the loss of about $625 million (173,600 Ethereum and 25.5 million USDCs).
Source / pexels
STEPN is on the cusp, but Web 3.0 practitioners are both happy and worried.
An investor who pays attention to Web3.0 told Shen Yan that the current stage of Web 3.0 is like the development of Web 2.0 in the 90s of the last century, when even smartphones have not yet appeared. Compared with the current lack of open NFT secondary transactions in China, the development of Overseas Web3.0 is faster. However, STEPN is exposing more and more people to Web 3.0.
But what worries practitioners is that the entrants are mostly speculators who hold short-term money, which will be detrimental to the development of the entire Web3 ecosystem. The island owner said, "'Speculators' hope for virtual asset appreciation, and real Web3 Builders (builders) hope that Web3 can play a role in data and information confirmation, decentralization and self-governance, rather than becoming a target for 'speculators' to dig for gold." ”
Island owners believe that from a global perspective, the key to Web3 in 2022 lies in "breaking the circle" and "compliance". "Breaking the circle" means that more Web2 practitioners and users can enter the market. "Compliance" means that Web3 will move towards compliance, and more and more regions around the world can introduce relevant policies to provide the soil for practitioners to develop and protect the rights and interests of users from a legal perspective. Only by achieving circle breaking and compliance can Web3 usher in a hundred flowers: the infrastructure is getting better and better, a large number of products are emerging, there are more and more users, and the ecology will naturally slowly prosper.
Some people call 2022 the first year of VCs and practitioners flocking to Web 3.0. The STEPN team completed a $5 million seed round in January, led by Sequoia Capital India and Folius Ventures.
But Web 3.0 is now in its early stages, new products are emerging in an endless stream, and it is too early to draw conclusions about which one will come to the end.
*The title image comes from the Internet. At the request of the interviewees, Bilion, Gino, and the island owner are pseudonyms.