STEPN

STEPN to sack 100 staff as players step away from the move-to-earn app

The move-to-earn blockchain game has seen a significant drop in its user base and its rewards token has taken a decline due to the cryptocurrency market conditions.

Solana blockchain-based move-to-earn fitness app STEPN is reportedly laying off over 100 of its contract workers amid the ongoing crypto bear market and as its user numbers dwindle from previous highs.

Moderators and ambassadors will be among the sacked staff, and investment in STEPN will be scaled back, according to crypto reporter Colin Wu.

There will also be a shift toward promoting STEPN’s parent company, Find Satoshi Lab (FSL), and its new projects, Wu claimed, citing community sources.

Cointelegraph contacted STEPN for comment but did not receive a response before publication. 

Founded by Australian-based fintech Find Satoshi Lab, STEPN launched in 2021, giving user’s the ability to purchase nonfungible token (NFT) sneakers used to walk or run in the real world to earn Green Satoshi Tokens (GST) which can be used for in-game purchases or cashed out.

STEPN was off to a promising start after launch; its governance token Green Metaverse Token (GMT), hit an all-time high in April, reaching $4.11, while GST peaked at $8.51, according to data from CoinGecko.

Now, GMT has fallen over 85% and is trading at $0.61 at the time of writing, while GST has dropped over 99% to $0.026.

It’s the same story for the app’s users, according to Dune Analytics data, which reveals the app’s daily active user count rose to an all-time high of 105,257 on June 26 before crashing down to under 6,000 in September before recovering slightly to 11,877 users as of Oct. 5. 

Recent setbacks include being forced to block mainland China users and a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in June. 

STEPN Monthly Active Users (MAU) in 2022. Source: Dune Analytics

Crypto researcher Lucia Kim from self-described Web3-native accelerator nonce Classic claims that the decline could be the fault of the limitations of STEPN.

In a lengthy Oct. 4 Twitter post, Kim explained the system was structured to make users sell their tokens in the market to claim rewards, but this saw a supply increase, resulting in “accelerating token price decline due to excessive supply of NFTs.”

“The more rewards users get, the more tokens they sell to the market, which in turn affects its ecosystem,” Kim explained.

Related: Web3 gaming still a long way from mainstream adoption: Survey

The STEPN team has recently teased changes are coming, with co-founder Yawn Rong taking to Twitter on Oct. 10 with an open letter to their community, stating, “changes are happening so that we can continue to add value to GMT and the Find Satoshi Lab ecosystem.”

“We will be devoting all of our resources to progressing to the next stage of FSL,” said Rong.

No specifics were revealed, but Rong says more will be explained over the next few weeks, telling his 34,000 Twitter followers they “won’t want to miss what comes next.”

Blockchain-based move-to-earn app STEPN under DDoS attacks after upgrade

Apart from trying to get rid of cheating and bots, STEPN is also working to limit its platform’s availability for users in mainland China.

Solana (SOL)-based move-to-earn application STEPN has reported multiple denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the aftermath of the platform proceeding with a major anti-cheating upgrade.

STEPN took to Twitter on June 5 to report that the platform had suffered a number of DDoS attacks that havecaused recovery maintenance and associated improper performance.

According to the statement, STEPN was expecting to secure and recover the servers in up to 12 hours but has not posted an update for 20 hours by the time of writing.

“Our engineers are working hard to fix the problems. We will announce here once recovery is complete. Thank you so much for everyone’s patience,” STEPN wrote.

The attacks came shortly after STEPN introduced its anti-cheating system referred to as “STEPN’s Model for Anti-Cheating,” or SMAC, on Friday. The system aims to eliminate fake users from the platform as well as to prevent fraudulent motion data on the STEPN app in an attempt to gain unfair profit from the platform.

“SMAC system specifically targets the movement simulation by amending real walking/running data, thanks to our machine learning algorithm,” the anti-cheating system’s description reads.

STEPN reported on major platform issues soon after proceeding with the upgrade, with SMAC mistakenly identifying some genuine users as bots. Other problems included network issues caused by a “25 million DDOS attack” as well as the temporary inability to track any bots on the platform.

“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience caused to users. The anti-cheating update may seem small, but it is actually an important cornerstone of STEPN’s long-term development,” ST said.

Despite the platform’s DDoS issues, STEPN’s native token, the Green Satoshi Token (GST), has not seen any critical decline over the past several days. On the contrary, the GST is up around 10% over the past 24 hours, trading at $1.04 at the time of writing. The token’s market capitalization amounts to $624 million, according to data from CoinGecko.

Green Satoshi Token seven-day price chart. Source: CoinGecko

Related: People want to be paid crypto to exercise in the Metaverse: Survey

Launched in December 2021, STEP is a major move-to-earn mobile nonfungible token (NFT) game allowing users to earn tokens by walking, jogging or running outdoors with an NFT sneaker. The game has a dual token system, comprised of the GST token and the Governance Token (GMT).

The news comes as STEPN prepares to limit its platform’s availability for users in mainland China by mid-July.