I don’t like running, did never like it. But when it comes in a way of an investment (not only in your health lol), things may change 🤔
The concept of play-to-earn games got adopted well during last years. Now it’s time to move-to-earn though. StepN — is a project that came from Solana hackaton to top-10 in AppStore and gain massive user’s adoption in crypto in general. It gives you a way to earn an in-game token $GST after finishing a running session! In this article we will cover: gameplay basics; setting up the app; selecting your first sneakers; tips and tricks and I’ll share my personal results from first days of usage.
Please, note that I will describe only some moments from gameplay, for more info you can always check the official whitepaper
First steps
Install the App: It works both on IOS and Android, check StepN official website for the link.
Register an account: For registering an account you’ll need an activation code. You can grab one from official activation code faucet either from official Telegram or Discord groups. Faucet codes are limited per day basis, so you could try ask someone from the community for one.
BE CAREFUL: Activation codes are FREE, don’t buy them on the secondary market, it’s mostly to be a scam offer.
Gameplay basics
StepN is considering themselves as a Web3 lifestyle app that helps you to build good habits.
To start earning from running, you’ll have to buy a pair of NFT sneakers first. There is an in-app marketplace where you can purchase either a pair of sneakers or a Shoebox containing some sneakers as well.
Furthermore, you’ll need to have enough energy for the run. Basically, you will have 2.0 energy available, it’s getting refilled by 0.5 every 6 hours. That means, that you can run 10 mins max per 24 hours . When owning more sneakers, you could get more energy slots e.g. you get 4.0 energy when owning 3+ pairs of common sneakers. You can learn more in the official resources.
Your earnings depends on the Efficiency and Resilience attributes. More Efficiency you have, more tokens you generate from the run. More Resilience you have, less tokens you pay for repair. You can increase these values by leveling up you sneakers. All of the information about leveling up can be found here. I would recommend to level up your sneakers to at least level 9 or 14. From my calculations, I’ve found that one level up costs getting back in extra earnings from runs in about 4 days. And then you just keep getting more, so it makes sense.
Summing up, game mechanics can be described in the following steps:
1. Check that you have enough energy for the run
2. Select sneakers
3. Start run and earn $GST tokens
4. Finish run
5. Pay for the repair. This is optional step, you can repair sneakers e.g. once in a week or so, just keep the health value more than 50, or you’ll earn less from runs.
6. Level-up (Optional)
7. Start over on next day
Selecting your first NFT sneakers
There are 4 main types of sneakers: Walkers, Joggers, Runners and Trainers. Each of them requires you to run in some speed ranges and allows to earn more or less $GST. More details on that you can find here. I’m using Joggers (4–10km/h) and it’s totally fine for me. There are some things to take into consideration when buying your first sneakers
Efficiency+Resilience Value: Each sneaker has 4 attributes in total (Efficiency, Luck, Comfort, Resilience). Comfort is useless on current game stage, Luck has any effect only when you own 5+ sneakers. That’s why our main focus Efficiency (that allows us to earn more) and resilience (that allows us to pay less for repair). Try to find a pair with Efficiency+Resilience sum to be around 15.0 or even 18.0 IN BASE. Let’s have a look on my sneakers and I’ll explain what I mean:
Here we see Efficiency to be 4.7 in base and 38.7 with level points applied. The green part of the line indicates boost added due to level-up. Same goes with Resilience: 8.9 in base and 10.9 with level points.
As you see, I have 13.6 in total for Efficiency and Resilience in base, I got them for 10.8 SOL. That’s not the best that you can find, it’s better to spend a few days watching the in-app marketplace for new listings, investigate pairs and finally find a cool one!
Tips and tricks
- If you split your runs into 4 during the day, for 0.5 energy each, then you could maximize your profit. Main trick behind that is that energy getting refilled by 0.5 but spent by 0.2. That means that running for 0.5 energy will actually give you the profit equivalent to spending 0.6 energy.
- Previous trick has some drawbacks, though. You’ll have to spend more on repairs as well. People in community chats say that having Resilience≥11.5 makes repair cost optimal especially for splitting run strategy described before.
- Don’t forget to allow app to always track your GPS. I’ve failed the first running because of that, app just didn’t track me moving. Try to provide stable internet connection.
My results
I’ve already done 7 days of running sessions and here are my results. As you could see, I’ve reinvested in leveling up the sneakers often. But despite that, I’ve got a clean profit of 35.09 GST (~150$) in first week and sneakers leveled up from 6th to 9th.
Conclusion
All in all, StepN seems to be a super interesting project for me, despite the fact that I thought it’s a scam at first. Now I have the motivation for jogging (at least for a month), interest in the project itself and some joy during war. In next article we will have a look on updates to level-up system and I’ll share more of my results and explorations. Stay tuned!
