One trend that has been gaining traction in the cryptocurrency sector right now is move-to-earn – a relatively new niche with a range of products and services that reward you for your activeness. Move-to-earn applications provide an innovative way to make money while also improving your physical activity.
What is Move-to-Earn (M2E)?
As you may know, move-to-earn (M2E) platforms reward users for keeping fit with an extra revenue stream when they engage in routine exercise activities or particular fitness-related challenges. It is an active offshoot of play-to-earn models where players are rewarded for the gameplay, such as winning battles, progressing to different levels and exploring the in-game universe.
Move-to-earn platforms often seek to promote physical activity, assisting you in coping with obesity and sedentariness and providing you with an innovative method to earn money for improving your health. Indeed, researchers have discovered that improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness result in substantial reductions in overall and disease-specific mortality, with maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) having a high correlation with life expectancy.
In September 2021, the Web3 lifestyle app STEPN coined and popularised the phrase “move-to-earn,” which has since been adopted by several other applications that reward users for their activities. While the mechanism through which these apps produce incentives varies substantially across platforms, virtually all reward their users in their native utility tokens for performing fitness-related activities. Earned tokens can be exchanged within the app or sold/traded on the marketplace or external exchange.
Additionally, most move-to-earn apps increase demand for new participants and alleviate selling pressure on third-party exchanges. This contributes to the market’s stability and ensures that the move to earn incentives remains desirable. As supply-side pressures might exceed demand, the token’s value can ultimately plummet, as shown by several play-to-earn games’ failure to sustain demand.
Best Move-to earn Project: STEPN (GMT)
At the time of writing, the most well-known move-to-earn project, STEPN, was launched in March 2022 through a token sale on Binance’s Launchpad platform.
To earn money using the STEPN app, users must possess one of four kinds of NFT sneakers: Walker, Jogger, Runner, or Trainer. These have a variety of characteristics that determine how much they earn. These NFTs can be purchased via the in-app marketplace or rented from another user who would receive a part of any income generated while the renter moves around.
STEPN is a M2E app integrated with social-fi and game-fi elements. Source: coinmarketcap
The total supply of STEPN sneaker NFTs is now 99,999, and the floor price is little north of 11 SOL (>$1,100). This results in a somewhat high barrier to entry, exacerbated by the high level of competition for NFT rentals. Each NFT has four distinct factors (Attributes, Types, Levels, and Quality) that impact its value, the amount of GST to be earned, and the rate it levels up.
Users are rewarded for exercising with Green Satoshi Tokens (GST), which can be sold on a compatible DEX/CEX or used to mint, repair, and level up sneakers in the STEPN app. Additionally, STEPN is coupled with a second token, the Green Metaverse Token (GMT), utilised to manage the platform. The cryptocurrency can be acquired on external exchanges or earned by those with sneaker NFTs at level 30 or above.
With a market valuation more than 20 times that of all other move-to-earn tokens combined, STEPN presently leads the move-to-earn space. It has also received great support from the blockchain community and helped buck the bearish market trend, with GST and GMT witnessing 35% and 959% growth over the previous 30 days, respectively.
Up and Coming Move-to-Earn Apps
Although STEPN is far and away the market leader in the move-to-earn space, a number of other apps have gained significant traction, too, including:
Step App (FITFI)
As the newest move-to-earn platform, Step App was greatly inspired by STEPN and functions similarly — users must stake upgradeable sneaker NFTs called SNEAKs to start earning rewards.
KCAL is the platform’s utility and reward token that can be used to buy SNEAK NFTs and are gained by staking a SNEAK in the app. It enables users to compete locally or worldwide in some different ways and makes exercise more enjoyable and rewarding via the use of gamification.
Step.App – Re-imagine Fitness! Source: @StepApp_/Twitter
FITFI is the name of Step App’s second ecosystem token. This is largely used to assist with platform governance, such as determining burn rates, revenue splits, and development milestones. 50% of the platform’s revenue is utilised to repurchase FITFI tokens from the market.
Apart from its primary move-to-earn feature, the Step App allows users to make microtransactions. They can use credit cards or cryptocurrency to buy a range of things from the in-app store, including character skins, sneak skins, and map styles. The app also has the staked play function where users enter tournaments with their friends or other gamers by using their tokens.
With more than 90,000 registered users and established partnerships with top-tier athletes, Step App seeks to bring FitFi to a ready-and-waiting audience. Because it was the most sought-after DAO Maker IDO ever, the platform is generally anticipated to start with a bang.
Wirtual (WIRTUAL)
Wirtual is a fitness-related application that pays users for completing different fitness tasks such as jogging, swimming, dancing and working out. Wirtual refers to this as “sweat mining.”
To begin, users first download the Wirtual app and create an account. After that, they may engage in challenges and submit activity data to earn WIRTUAL coins. Certain challenges are free to enter, while others require payment.
Wirtual (WIRTUAL) M2E game. Source: bengbenggaming
Users are assigned to one of seven tiers of holders when they hold WIRTUAL coins in the Wirtual application wallet. The more WIRTUAL you have, the higher your tier and the more WIRTUAL you can earn. The daily earning for Default users (those with less than 100 WIRTUAL) is up to 0.1 WIRTUAL while it is up to 3 WIRTUAL for Emerald users (those with at least 10,000 WIRTUAL).
The platform includes a store where users can purchase a variety of NFTs that boost the number of WIRTUAL they can earn each day. This equates to around 6.5 cents per day for default users and $1.95 per day for Emerald users — excluding any boosts offered by holding NFTs.
Sweatcoin
Sweatcoin is a smartphone application that rewards users for maintaining a healthy lifestyle via physical activities such as walking, swimming, and cycling.
Sweatcoin is unique among move-to-earn applications because it does not pay users in cryptocurrency but instead its in-house reward points known as “sweatcoins.” Similarly, it requires no initial investment, so users can start earning immediately after downloading the app and registering an account.
Sweatcoin is a unique M2E app. Source: bitcoinvn
Users may upgrade to premium membership, which enables them to earn more sweatcoins each day, have access to a premium marketplace, and raise their sweatcoin earning rate. This service is $4.99 per month.
Users on the free tier get 0.95 sweatcoins for every 1,000 steps. The precise value of this variable varies daily and is determined by the available offers at that time Sweatcoins can be exchanged for a variety of products and services from partners such as Tidal, SKULLCANDY, and Yoga Club. In some situations, sweatcoins can be used for 100% of the payment, while in others, they can be used to obtain a discount.
Additionally, users may transfer their sweatcoins to other users, sell them on a variety of third-party platforms (primarily peer-to-peer), or give them away to charities/NGOs through the Sweatcoins For Good function.
While Sweatcoin does not use leverage blockchain technology presently, there are plans to move it to the blockchain and issue sweatcoins as a fully functional digital asset that is tradeable on exchanges. Sweatcoin has not stated a precise date for this, but has maintained this commitment at least since 2018.
Genopets (GENE)
Genopets encourages users to take better care of their mind and body by immersing them in a gamified experience where they nurture, combat, and grow digital animals called Genopets. These Genopets may be purchased, sold, and traded, and more powerful pets generate more money.
Genopets, like many other move-to-earn apps, has two tokens. The first token, $GENE, serves as the game’s governance token and is used to steer the game’s development and underlying processes. The second token, $KI, is the in-game cash that players get as a reward and can be used to refine crystals and buy habitats for their Genopets in order to boost their stats.
Genopets M2E game. Source: Genopets/Medium
Genopets is unique among earn-to-play platforms for allowing users to earn without making an initial investment via its free-to-play model, which enables users to mint and sell Genopet NFTs. Its pay-to-play concept enables additional income sources, such as in-game revenues in the form of $KI and the opportunity to sell a variety of in-game NFTs, such as habitats and crystals.
The game is now in open beta, with priority being given to individuals who possess a Genesis Genopet or have staked GENE tokens. The game’s full public release is scheduled to launch within the second half of 2022.
How to Purchase STEPN, Genopets and Other M2E Tokens
In general, you can purchase move-to-earn game tokens and receive some rewards. Most users are expected to earn a few dollars daily by interacting with move-to-earn platforms and certain users (e.g., those who are very active or have strong NFT upgrades) can make far more. For instance, STEPN users who own uncommon level 30+ NFT sneakers can make hundreds of dollars in GST each day, whilst the majority of users earn less than $20.
So, where to purchase STEPN, Genopets and other M2E Tokens? Users can join in STEPN by purchasing SOL on major exchanges. GMT trading pairs are the most liquid on Binance and are also available on Gate.io, Huobi Global, FTX, and other controlled and decentralised exchanges.
As the second-most popular move-to-earn token (after GMT), GENE is regularly sought for by people who feel it might be just as popular, if not more so, than STEPN once the public version of the app is released.
The GENE coin is now listed on a number of Solana-based decentralised exchanges (DEXs), including Raydium and Serum. Currently, only a few well-known CEXes, notably FTX and Bybit, support the token. GENE is also available on a few additional obscure systems
It’s worth noting that M2E applications are still in their infancy, and their potential as a long-term financial asset is unknown. There is a possibility that the industry will fail to achieve widespread adoption, and the market’s focus will shift to another trend, leaving coins significantly below their peak value.
