An Australian-founded crypto platform that rewards people for being fit and active is making huge strides, with more than 100,000 active users and a token that’s a 200-bagger in just a few short weeks.

STEPN’s GMT governance token, recently launched by Adelaide-based Find Satoshi Lab, was changing hands at an all-time high of US$2 on Wednesday, up 90 per cent from Tuesday, fueled by hints of an upcoming partnership with a big-name sneaker company like Nike and Adidas.

The Solana and Binance Smart Chain-based token was launched earlier this month and began trading for around 15c after a US$4.2 million token sale on Binance Launchpad on March 1, where they sold for 1c each.  The sale was oversubscribed by 828x, with over 130,000 participants committing BNB tokens.

“Stepn is a web3 lifestyle app with social-fi and game-fi elements,” the platform’s website reads. “Players can make handsome earnings by walking, jogging or running outdoors.”

A runner’s dream

Basically, users earn the other token in the STEPN ecosystem, Green Satoshi Tokens (GST), by downloading a smartphone app, buying an NFT “sneaker”, and running or walking outside with a GPS lock on their phone.

The sneakers were selling this afternoon for a minimum of 8.85 Solana tokens (US$990), although a sneaker-rental system is coming soon.

There’s also a number of gamification elements — users can adorn their sneakers with gems and badges and “level them up”. The sneakers also take damage on users’ runs and need to be repaired, which costs GST. Each sneaker has four attributes – efficiency, luck, comfort and resilience – which relates to gameplay.

People on social media have reported earning 10 to 20 in Green Satoshi Tokens (US$20 to US$40) or more for a single walk or run, although of course there’s questions over whether that’s sustainable.

 

Stepn notes that we’re simply not getting enough exercise as a population, despite its myriad benefits, and a rewards system is a proven way to build healthy habits.

“Move-to-earn is still a very early category, but user results from STEPN are already showing incredible promise and impact,” the project wrote on Medium recently.

Stepn was a winner of the 2021 Solana Ignition Hackathon Gaming Track in October and raised $5 million from venture capitalists in its first funding round in January.

Stepn says it has over 55 people working on the project, based in the UK, US, Australia, Singapore, China and the Phillipines. Stepn was founded by Jerry Huang of Sydney and Yawn Rong of Adelaide.

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