Are move to earn games profitable.
If there's one trend that is gaining significant momentum in the crypto space
right now, it's move to earn a relatively new niche that includes
a variety of products and services that pay users for being active.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
Well, there's a catch.
In the vast majority of use cases,
users need to fork out a significant amount of money to begin earning.
Nonetheless, under the right circumstances, a move to earn applications
could provide an intriguing opportunity to generate income
and might motivate users to actually increase their physical activity.
Here we take a closer look at the move to earn landscape
as it stands and examines some of its biggest players But first,
before we get into that, my name is Trev, and here at CoinMarketCap.
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and let's learn together. So what is moved to earn?
Well, as you might have guessed,
move to earn platforms provide users with rewards for keeping fit,
unlocking an additional income stream, for participating in their usual exercise
activities, or taking part in specific fitness related challenges.
And it comes off the trend of play to earn
where users are rewarded in cryptocurrency for playing these games.
These platforms generally aim to incentivize fitness
helping to reduce obesity and sedentaryness
and giving users an opportunity to earn an income for improving their health.
And indeed, researchers recently found that improvements in cardio respiratory
fitness led to a significant reduction in all cause and disease
specific mortality within individuals, maximum oxygen uptake
or VO2 max being strongly correlated with their life expectancy.
The term move to earn was coined and first popularized by the Web
3.0 lifestyle app known as STEPN in September of 2021.
In a sense
been adopted by a variety of other apps that reward users for their activity.
But the concept can
actually be traced back quite a bit since many other insurance providers
and employers and even public authorities offered discounts and incentives
and prizes for those who actually complete specific exercise requirements, such
as exceeding a certain number of steps per month or shedding a few pounds.
So in a way it's actually been around for quite a long time.
The way these applications generate rewards can vary considerably
from platform to platform, but almost all pay users
in a form of their native utility tokens for completing fitness related tasks
such as walking, running or swimming in the state is usually tracked
by a cell phone or fitness tracker before being uploaded
to the move to an app and assess to see if it qualifies for rewards.
Earn tokens can then either
be directly traded for goods and services within the app or sold
or traded on an internal marketplace or external exchange.
For other cryptocurrencies
and besides being used to simply reward users, most moved to earn applications
also provide an additional utility for their tokens, which acts to drive up
demand for new participants and minimize selling pressure on third party exchanges.
This helps to maintain the market value and ensure that the move to earn rewards
remain worthwhile.
And that said, supply side pressure can outstrip demand,
which can eventually send the value of the token tumbling,
as has been demonstrated by the hordes of play 2 earn games
that were unable to sustain demand In the last six months,
the number of moves to earn games has grown considerably,
and there are now close to a dozen apps that reward users for being active.
And most of these are still relatively
obscure, but some have gone on to achieve considerable success.
Starting with our first one, which is STEPN or GMT.
By far, the best known move to earn project
step in hit the market with a bang in March of 2022
after conducting a token sale on Binance launch pad platform
to begin earning with these salons based step in app.
Players need to own a one of four types of nifty sneakers
Walker jogger runner or trainer and these have various attributes
associated with them which can actually affect how much they earn.
Users can opt to either buy their own and NFT from an in-app marketplace
or rent them for free from another user
in return for a share of any revenue that they generate while moving around.
So as it stands pun intended, the total supply of step in
sneaker and NFTs is 99,999
and the floor price is just north of 11 sole or greater than $1,100.
And this makes for a rather high barrier to entry.
More so when you consider that competition for NFT rentals is high
and each nifty has four different parameters attributes, types,
levels and quality which affect its value and the amount of GST
that the holder can earn and how fast it can level up these sneaker and off tees
and other products can be bought from the in-app marketplace using sole.
In return for getting fit, users are rewarded with Green Satoshi
tokens or GST, which can either be sold on a supported DEXs or centralized exchange
or used in the step in app to means repair and level up sneakers.
Step In also has a second token associated with it
known as Green Metaverse Token or GMT which is used for governing the platform
and the token can either be purchased from an external exchange
or earned by users wearing sneaker and NFTs at level 30 or above
step in currently dominates the move to earn space with a market capitalization
of more than 20 x that of other move to earn tokens combined.
It has also garnered significant support in the blockchain community
in recent weeks and bucked the bearish market trend with GST and GMT recording
35% in 959%
growth respectively in just over 30 days.
As it stands, STEPN is currently operating as a public beta,
and new users will need an activation code to get started
and the platform is set to conduct an IPO on the Binance NFT marketplace soon.
The success of Step In has spawned a variety of similar products and each of
which is trying to carve out its own chunk in the move to earn niche.
And a variety of other applications have also picked up considerable momentum
in recent months, and some of the most popular ones were about to discuss.
And one of those being Step App or Fit Fi, arguably the first direct competitors
to step in the Step app is an avalanche based fitness application
that rewards users for being active as the newest move to earn platform.
Step App has taken a great deal of inspiration from step in
and share some of the same similarities in the way that it operates.
Such that users need to stake Upgradable sneaker
and if teased, known as sneaks to begin earning the platforms.
Utility and reward token is known as key count in these can be used to purchase
sneak and NFTs and are earned by participating in the app
by staking a sneak and it allows players to compete
locally or globally in a variety of different ways and uses.
And it also does this through gamification
to help make exercise more engaging in a rewarding experience.
Step up second ecosystem token known as Fit Fi.
This is primarily used to help govern the platform, helping to determine
burn rates, revenue splits, development milestones and more.
50% of the platforms play income is used to buy back fit
fi tokens from the market besides as main move to earn functionality.
The Step app also includes micro-transactions and so users can
purchase a variety of items from in-app shops using credit cards or crypto,
including character skins, sneak skins and map styles.
And there's also staked play users can use their tokens
to enter competitions with their friends or other players.
Step Up distinguishes itself from other move to earn applications
and that it is completely community funded.
The platform recently conducted its public
oh via Dow Maker and is said to launch
with a market capitalization of $348,000 with over 90,000 participants
registered and partnerships
with the top tier athletes already established step up is looking to deliver
a fit fi to a ready and waiting audience and the platform is widely expected
to launch with a bang given that it was the most sought after DAO maker IDO ever.
So what is Wirtual Another early entry to the move to earn sector
Wirtual is an application that rewards users
for participating in various fitness related challenges,
including running, swimming, dancing and working out virtual calls.
This process sweat mining to get started, users simply download
the virtual app and register an account after which they can participate
in challenges and submit their activity data to earn virtual coins.
Some of these challenges are free to enter,
while others are paid by holding virtual coins in the virtual application.
Wallet users are assigned to one of seven holder tiers, and the more virtual
a user holds, the higher their tier and the more virtual
that they can actually earn in default users.
With less than a hundred virtual held can earn up to point one virtual each day,
whereas Emerald users with at least 10,000 virtual held
can earn up to three virtual each day.
And the platform features a shop that sells an array of and NFTs
that increase the number of virtual user can earn each day
and that the tokens current value add in around $0.65.
This equates to approximately six and a half cents a day for default users
and a dollar $0.95 a day for Emerald users,
excluding any boost provided by holding NFTs
And while these figures might seem trivial, it should be noted
that virtual is primarily targeting users in South Asia,
including Thailand, Indonesia Vietnam and the Philippines, where these sums
can be a reasonable supplement to the average income
in the platform recently announced its avatar 2.0 technology,
which it hopes will actually add an additional level of immersion
to its platform and enrich the move to earn experience for users.
So the next one we're going to be talking about is sweat, coin,
sweat coin is a mobile application that pays users for keeping fit
by engaging
in a variety of physical activities such as walking, swimming and cycling.
Sweat Coin is unusual among move to earn applications,
and then it doesn't actually use cryptocurrency to pay users,
but instead uses a in-house reward points known simply as sweat coins.
Likewise, it doesn't actually require any upfront investment
allowing users to begin earning by simply installing the app
and creating an account that said, users can opt into premium membership,
which allows them
to increase the number of sweat coins that they can actually earn each day
and access
a premium marketplace and double the rate at which they earn sweat coins.
This cost $4.99 a month.
In free tier, users can actually receive
.95 sweat coins for every 1000 steps that they take.
The exact value of this actually changes from day to day
and is based on the offers that are available at the time.
Users can exchange their coins from an array of goods and services
from partners like titles, Skullcandy and Yoga Club.
In some cases, sweat coins
can actually be used for 100% of the payment, whereas in
other cases sweat coin can be used to unlock a discount.
Users can also transfer their sweat coins to other users and sell them through
various third party platforms, mostly peer to peer, or donate them to various
charities or the NGOs for sweat coins to actually have a good future.
Those what coin doesn't currently leverage blockchain technology.
There are plans to migrate it to blockchain and issues
what coins as a full fledged digital asset tradable on exchanges?
Sweatcoin hasn't yet specified exactly when this why actually take place,
but has maintained this pledge since at least 2018
and the next one is Genopets or gene and the first gaming project in the move
to earn niche and one of the first move to earn projects
full stop is Genopets launched with one goal in mind
to make fitness more rewarding
and the platform helps users take better care of their mind and body
through a game of find experience that sees them nurture, battle and evolve
digital critters known as Genopets These Genopets can be bought,
sold and traded and more powerful pets have improved earnings potential.
So like many other
move to earn applications, GEnopets features a two token economy.
The first token gene is its governance token
and its use for steering the development of the game.
The second token, known as KI, is the in-game currency
that is provided as a reward for playing and could be used to refine crystals
and purchase habitats for their Gino pets to improve their stats.
Genopets is unusual among move to earn applications,
and then it's actually possible to begin earning without any upfront investment
via its free to play model which allows users to mint and sell.
Genopets and NFTs is pay to play model unlocks additional revenue streams
including in-game earning in the form of canine and the ability
to sell a range of other in game nifty such as crystals in habitats.
The game is currently available to play with open beta with priority given
to those who either own a genius Genopets or have staked gene tokens.
The full public version of the game is expected to launch in the second
half of 2022 to participate in STEPN Users can also buy soul on major exchanges.
GMT trading pairs have the largest liquidity on Binance
and are also listed on Gates.IO, Hoby Global and FTX
and other exchanges centralize or decentralized
as arguably the second most popular move to earn token behind
GMT gene is frequently sought after by those that believe
it could actually be just as or if not more popular than STEPN Once
there is a public version of the app, the Gene Token is currently available
on a variety of Solana based DEXs including Raydium and Serum.
Only a handful of well, reputable, centralized exchanges currently support.
The token, including FTX and ByBit.
Gene can also be found on a handful of other more obscure platforms,
and the full list can be found
actually in our description box below or move to earn games profitable.
Many people looking to get into move to earn games are understandably
looking for one thing to turn a profit from their physical activity.
And while many other users will indeed turn a profit,
their odds typically depend on the following factors.
So the first one is initial investment.
Most moved to earn applications requiring an initial investment,
either an end of tees or utility token, rarer to use any larger token holdings
generally unlock improved move to earn rewards for participants
and can decrease the time it takes to achieve a positive reward on investment.
And the next one is activity level.
Given that
yields are usually directly proportional to the amount of physical activity
a user puts in, those that are highly active are likely to achieve profitability
more easily.
Let's move to earn games reward users with a fraction of either their utility
tokens, inflation or from a fixed reward pool.
In general, these rewards are divided between users based on their performance
relative to all other participants or based on a fixed per person cap
and the more users taking part, the lower rewards for each user in most cases.
The next one is price action.
Depending on the price action and the reward token, move to earn
applications can range from unprofitable to incredibly profitable.
Users should bear in mind that tokens with strongly bearish price action
will likely be less profitable in the long run
than those with bullish price actions.
And that said, it's likely
to become increasingly challenging to earn on many of these platforms over time.
As many users join in the rewards pool or split between more users.
Likewise, these kinds of apps are frequently targets for manipulation,
since it's often possible to generate fraudulent inputs or generate false
exercise data using bots or physical contraptions to simulate activity.
The most move to earn applications are actively working to tackle this.
It is likely that a fair
chunk of the rewards will be siphoned off by fraudulent participants
if these applications continue to grow in popularity.
The barrier to entry may also increase by making it more expensive to acquire
a large token holding or powerful NFTs to maximize the rate of earning.
Overall, most users can expect to earn a few dollars each day by casually
engaging with a move to earn application, while some users, for example,
those that are particularly active or have powerful nifty upgrades
can potentially earn far more in for example, step
in users with rare level of 30 plus and 50 shoes
can earn potentially hundreds of dollars worth of GST each day,
whereas most users will likely earned around less than $20 a day.