2 months of running with the NFT Fitness Stepn app

In April, all the Crypto Twitter degenerates were bragging about how much money they were making just by going for a run and following him on Stepn. The app rewards you with its GST (Green Satoshi) token for walking, jogging or running outdoors. Some Web3 users were racking up over $20 in GST per run.

But that was in April, when the GST was close to $9.

On May 10 when I started using the app (late to the party) the GST was down to $3.50. I earned 0.65 GST for my first 2.5 mile run, or $2.27. Still, hey: free money (well, "money") for an activity I was already planning on doing. Pretty cool.

Then, the GST continued to fall amid the broader crypto crash. On my third ride on Stepn, May 1, the GST was 97 cents. Today it's 8 cents. (Could this thing go zero? Absolutely.)

To date, through eight courses on Stepn of 1.6 to 3.6 miles each, I've earned 31 GSTs in total, currently worth $2.17.

And I didn't even mention the catch. To start using Stepn, you need to buy an NFT sneaker, parked on Solana and priced in SOL. When I bought mine around the end of April, SOL was flying high, almost $100, so I shudder to share what I spent on my sneaker: over $400. Market research!

People who were ahead of Stepn talked about how quickly they expected to recoup the money they spent on their NFT sneaker and start making a profit. At current crypto prices, I will get back what I spent in 363 months, or about 30 years. The app also continually tries to get you to spend more money by "fixing" your sneaker or "leveling up" by buying another one.

If tokenomics isn't enough (it certainly incentivizes Ponzi charges), the UX is far below leading Web2 fitness apps such as Nike Running Club and Strava. (When I run now I use all three apps.) Stepn currently has no social features - but CMO Shiti Maghani told us on the gm podcast in June that these were coming - and will only show distances in kilometers. Like Axie Infinity, the progenitor of the promising but problematic "play-to-earn" model, these products ask users to buy before they can even determine if they like the game.

That said, I think Stepn, which amassed 3 million users in just six months, is a very interesting proof of concept for utility NFTs.

As I have written in previous columns, I believe that NFTs are here to stay and will evolve well beyond the wealth flex of PFPs like Bored Apes. I guess we haven't seen the most interesting use cases for the technology yet, whether it's for ticketing (as Mark Cuban thinks), games, the metaverse, or something else.

I like the idea of ​​an NFT as a club entry pass. At NFT NYC last month, several games were only allowed to people who had a certain NFT, and they used apps like Tokenproof to verify. I think Stepn's mistake was pricing his NFT sneakers way too high; the trend is now shifting to more affordable NFTs.

I also believe that the community element is essential. Despite Stepn's design flaws, I feel there are people using it primarily because they want to support these types of projects. I'm in two different Stepn Telegram groups, and they buzz all day, every day.

So I see the meaning of Stepn as symbolic. We're in the very early innings of the token economy, and first-mover attempts like Axie Infinity and Stepn should be commended for trying to figure this stuff out, even if someone else is likely to come next. and do it better.

This is why Axie and Stepn are making significant changes to their products (Axie has created free starter NFTs for new players, Stepn will redeem and burn its GMT governance token, and add Ethereum support) to accommodate the next wave of crypto -curious.