Introducing the elements of bringing physical activity into the gaming space is not new. This was done by companies like Nintendo for the Wii and other AR games like Pokemon Go! Where they encourage players to move and engage muscles other than their brains and fingers to progress in the game. However, what’s new is running or walking to earn cryptocurrency. A concept turned into reality by the game STEPN.

Stepn (also stylized as StepN or STEPN) is a game that promises to incentivize its users with cryptocurrency by doing activities that require movement like running, walking, and jogging. This “move-to-earn” Solanium blockchain-based NFT game app which started on August 10, 2021, tries to incorporate healthy lifestyle activities with Game-Fi and Social-Fi elements. The game uses GST as its utility token in the game and GMT as its governance token. Find Satoshi Lab, the company behind the game hopes that the project will attract non-crypto runners into the crypto space.

This may all seem simple so far. You just run and you get money back with crypto. Easy right? The complexity of the game lies with choosing the right Sneaker to use. I’m talking about the NFT sneakers needed in the game (but a good pair of sneakers will also help you when you decide to run with it in the real world). They also had a collaboration with Asics, an actual shoe brand so you know they take their shoe game seriously.

 To be able to play the game you need to have at least one sneaker in the app. This sneaker will decide the distance and the speed of the run you will have to do to earn the GST.

There are 4 types of these NFT sneakers; Walker, Jogger, Runner, and Trainer. Each with varying distance to run, speed of running, and stats which include:

•   Efficiency – affects how many tokens can be earned per sneaker**.**
•    Luck – increases chances of earning STEPN mystery boxes (which may include rewards like gems or extra coins).
• Comfort – increases chances of earning GMT tokens.
•  Resilience – Slows down the wear on the NFT Sneakers since they get “damaged” when you use them. Fret not, the shoes don’t get destroyed. Although you can’t use the shoes for running until you repair them using GST.

Owning multiple shoes will increase the “energy” you have. You use this energy to earn in the game so having more is beneficial if you want to earn faster. You can have up to 20 energy depending on the number of shoes you have in your collection. As of the time of writing this article, the floor price for sneakers is 4.15 SOL. Pretty pricey for entry but some users say they had their Return of Investment within the span of 1-2 months which can help justify the cost.

 Overall, I think it is an interesting way to gamify exercises like running and walking to help people be more active while innovating the limits of how far web3 and the technology of cryptocurrency can go. I know people will be skeptical about this, like how they often are with play-to-earn projects, especially with the recent drop that Axie Infinity experienced in the last months, which at the time of writing, is one of if not the biggest P2E games.

Entering the project is also tricky since it is an invite-only game. Invite codes can only be obtained through active players requiring them to spend their energy to do so. This will make it harder for new players to get into the system but also helpful in controlling the coin since it will not move as drastically compared to other P2E games. There’s a move-to-earn trend happening in the crypto space and I think that STEPN is a pretty good game to run into.