牵手Adidas 卖NFT鞋的StepN能否再续神话？

来源：元宇宙日爆

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Web3 world's veteran players can hardly not know StepN. Recently, this Web3 application, which had previously pushed the "Move To Earn (Move and Earn)" gameplay to the global market, finally made new moves after two years of silence: on April 15, StepN announced a collaboration with the renowned sports brand Adidas to launch a gameplay that combines physical and NFT, returning to the vision of NFT users.

In 2022, the "StepN" that aimed to "get 3 million people their first virtual shoes" had gone viral globally, with athletics enthusiasts in Japan, Singapore, the United States, the United Kingdom, and even many places in China receiving an "NFT sports shoe" through the "move and earn" method. From then on, the mileage of walking or running was no longer just "showing off" in the circle of friends, but could also be monetized through NFT.

By transforming the popular "Play To Earn" model in GameFi, StepN's "Move to Earn (Move and Earn)" gameplay quickly gained popularity, especially driving those Web2 users who are happy to share their "daily steps" on WeChat Moments or fitness apps.

Unfortunately, the good times didn't last long. In May 2022, StepN suddenly announced the withdrawal of mainland Chinese users, and the related crypto assets in the application's ecosystem took a nosedive. The "death spiral" that GameFi projects had experienced before descended upon StepN, and the downward path became an inevitable course for the application.

The news of the collaboration with Adidas has brought StepN back into the spotlight, and the development team, Find Satoshi Lab, launched a chain game called Gas Hero last year, which added another application scenario for the governance token GMT. After the dimming of the halo for two years, can the StepN partnered with the big IP Adidas re-create the past myth?

01 StepN Partners with Adidas Big IP to Regain Attention

The NFT sports shoes co-launched by StepN and Adidas are called "STEPNxAdidas Genesis Sneakers". According to public information, this series of sports shoes NFTs is built on the Solana blockchain and includes a total of 1000 items, inspired by the most iconic running shoe silhouette of Adidas.

The NFT sports shoes of the StepN x Adidas collaboration have been minted

As of now, the 1000 running shoes NFTs in the STEPN x adidas Genesis Sneakers series have been minted on the launch market MOOAR, with a successful minting volume of 994 and 629 holder addresses. The token used for consuming this NFT series is the governance token GMT of StepN, and the current floor price of this NFT series is 20,000 GMT, while the secondary market price of GMT is currently reported at $0.24. So the floor price of the STEPN x adidas Genesis Sneakers NFT is equivalent to $4,800.

It's worth noting that on April 17, when this NFT was distributed by lottery on MOOAR, the single price was still 10,000 GMT, which was about $2,500 at the time. As of April 25, the floor price of this NFT has doubled in terms of GMT, and the floor price in USDT (US dollar stablecoin) has risen by 92%.

The users who have gained from the rise in the floor price are mainly the community members who were on the whitelist for the lottery distribution, which was led by Adidas and StepN's development team Find Satoshi Lab (FSL). It is reported that they will also receive exclusive benefits. Previously, StepN had also launched an airdrop worth $30 million for its loyal players and ecosystem asset holders.

From the above dynamics, the launch of the STEPN x adidas Genesis Sneakers series seems more like a sticky activity for old users.

Dune data also shows that StepN's user activity has increased somewhat before and after this release event, but if compared with the data before August 2023, this rebound in activity is just a "small wave".

02 "Death Spiral" Still Not Repaired

StepN's heyday ended in mid-May 2022, when the project issued an announcement to "suspend GPS and IP location services for mainland Chinese users in accordance with relevant regulatory policies", officially ending its operations in the Chinese mainland market. This was followed by a plunge in the project's ecosystem tokens GMT and GST, as well as a halving of the prices of NFT sports shoes, and the "death spiral" that GameFi projects find hard to escape also began to close in on it.

StepN's GMT experienced a brief peak in 2022 before settling down

Like another phenomenal chain game Axie, the "dual token" economic model failed again on StepN. In its economic system, the unlimited supply of GST is the reward generated by user movement, mainly used to upgrade the game experience, such as generating, repairing, and upgrading NFT sneakers; while GMT, with a total supply of about 5.368 billion, is defined as a governance token, mainly used for trading NFTs or as collateral in game finance scenarios.

StepN needs to find a way to keep the output and consumption of tokens relatively balanced. However, the unlimited supply of GST but limited scenarios means that GST is likely to experience a situation where output exceeds consumption; while GMT not only has limited scenarios, but its value is also strongly tied to NFTs, and if GMT or NFTs depreciate rapidly, it can cause a massive plunge in the value of both assets, leading to a vicious cycle.

The "sudden withdrawal" news in May 2022 became a trigger, and the asset liquidation by the withdrawn users quickly exposed the flaws in StepN's dual token model.

As of now, StepN is still maintaining a dual token model, and the way it has found for itself is to increase the application scenarios of the tokens, especially the GMT that can better represent the project's market value.

To activate the GMT ecosystem, StepN has made a lot of efforts.

First, the "joint strategy". Currently, GMT is the voting token for MOOAR NFT market members. MOOAR members can use GMT to vote for pre-issued NFTs on the Launchpad section, and those who vote successfully have the opportunity to obtain the minting rights of the new NFT. This has added an application scenario for GMT.

In addition, MOOAR members can also use GMT to trade NFTs or create AIGC NFT collections. This is a way to increase the consumption of GMT.

In addition to collaborating with external parties, StepN is also creating new use cases for GMT within the ecosystem. At the end of last year, the development team Find Satoshi Lab launched the chain game "Gas Hero", which did not issue a new token, but directly used GMT as the in-game consumption token, such as for strengthening game characters. The development team has also set aside about 2 million GMT to reward the creators of game characters and promised to pay a 2% royalty.

Increasing scenarios and enhancing consumption, with StepN's empowerment, GMT has gradually risen from the lowest point of $0.1 to $0.24, with a year-to-date increase recorded by CoinGecko of -26.5%, while the highest point of GMT in 2022 was $4.11 on April 28.

Scenario empowerment does not seem to have brought fundamental changes. It is worth noting that after the collaboration between StepN and Adidas on NFTs, the two parties will also jointly launch physical products. There are successful cases of NFT IP transitioning to physical products, such as the Pudgy Toys of the Pudgy Penguins NFT series, which have been well received by ordinary consumers and have even driven the sales of the original NFTs.

As a once-phenomenal product, StepN has accumulated a user base in the previous cycle, which is an advantage. After partnering with a big IP like Adidas, in addition to issuing new shoe NFTs to attract old users, a more important direction is to leverage and broaden its reach, making itself a more extensive and innovative IP, as traffic is the key to driving the value of crypto assets in the ecosystem.