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Here’s this week’s rapidly trending topic with insights and analysis

Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please do further research before you invest in any crypto asset.

Topic #1

Move to Earn

The crypto industry has been spearheading at an unprecedented rate into the gaming industry. Over the years, the industry has shown a 280% rise in Blockchain investments. 

And while you might have come across many applications rewarding you to stay fit, what if we told you that you could get rewarded in cryptos for doing things as simple as ‘moving’ or running? 

Continue reading as this report encapsulates the latest trend around the move-to-earn game trend, key market drivers, adoption, and challenges. Let’s get started. 

Global search interest for move-to-earn has increased by 426% in the last 2 years and 669% in the last 5 years.

Move-to-earn games combine elements from NFTs, GameFi, and SocialFi which reward users with tokens for their physical activity such as walking, running or swimming. It comes off the play-to-earn trend where users are rewarded for playing games.

Photo by VnExpress/Khuong Nha

The best known move-to-earn game is STEPN, one of the most downloaded games on the AppStore. Built on the Solana blockchain by Satoshi Lab, STEPN allows users to enjoy the move-to-earn NFT games via a simple GPS connection to their mobile devices. Users need to buy a pair of NFT sneakers on the application to start running and receive Green Satoshi Tokens (GST) tokens rewards. They can also be purchased on the Solana NFT marketplace Magic Eden. STEPN allows users to enjoy an active lifestyle by participating in stay-fit activities like jogging, running, or simply walking outdoors. STEPN also has another token GMT which is used for governing the platform.

Market Drivers

With an approach toward a healthier lifestyle, move-to-earn applications encourage physical activity while providing an opportunity for their users to make money out of it.

These new move-to-earn game models are trying to address the standard play-to-earn gaming pyramid scheme where applications mostly try to sell themselves via such freebies initially. However, as the user base increases, these funnels tend to focus on recruiting other people to their app instead of focusing on the core aspect of their operations. 

Adoption

STEPN has received investments from top venture capital firms from Alameda Research and Sequoia Capital to Solana Ventures and Binance Labs.

Bill Qian, the head of Binance Labs, commented:

‘As ‘Move to Earn’ is taking part in the Web 3 trend, STEPN is contributing with fast growth of its users. We believe that gamification of exercise can bring more people into the industry, accelerating the mass adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.’

Challenges

Lastly, while these applications continue to grow at large, they continue to get covered by several challenges in their everyday operations. One of the greatest is sustainability at the moment! How long will this trend last?

Another challenge is the cost to start playing, the floor price of a STEPN sneaker NFT has already shot past 12 SOL which is more than $1,200USD.

We hope you enjoyed this week's topic. See you next week