Move-to-earn (M2E) projects have shot to popularity over the last few months. Platforms such as Dustland and StepN have been a real hit with users. They allow you to earn a good amount of crypto, just by staying fit. The latest addition to the M2E bandwagon is StepWatch, a web3 health-tracking app that rewards users for exercising and burning those calories. But what is StepWatch and how does it work? Well, to find out, we first need to understand how M2E functions. Let’s go.
What is move-to-earn?
Move-to-earn is similar to play-to-earn (P2E), and both these concepts stem from the broader GameFi sector of the metaverse. GameFi represents the combination of gaming and finance. These platforms allow players to earn in-game assets that can be traded and sold for fiat currencies in the real world. Therefore, unlike traditional pay-to-play (P2P) gaming, with GameFi platforms, users have actual ownership of their in-game items, which have actual value outside the game.
Move-to-earn is a subset of GameFi. Instead of playing games, users exercise and complete fitness challenges to earn NFT and crypto rewards. This brings a whole new audience to the cryptocurrency market. Anyone who is already exercising can now earn real money for doing so. The rewards may also encourage people to act on fitness plans that they may have been ignoring.
What is StepWatch?
As mentioned earlier, StepWatch is the latest addition to the GameFi bandwagon, and more specifically, the move-to-earn space. It is a fitness reward app that provides incentives for all the exercise and physical activity you do. In a nutshell, it pays you (in NFTs and crypto tokens) for staying healthy. It works like a health and fitness tracking app, monitoring, recording, and analyzing your physical activities in real time. What makes it different, however, is its webe3 features which promise the users ownership of their content and monetization of their activities.
StepWatch was launched in May 2022 by a team of Korean Developers. In the last 3 months, the app has managed to rack up 380,000 active users.
How does it work?
The basic game mechanics are quite simple. You move 500 meters to obtain 100 SWE rewards. SWE is 1 of the 2 native cryptocurrencies of the StepWatch platform, the other being SWP. We’ll explain the relation between these two tokens a bit later.
Back to how step watch works. The game revolves around watch NFTs, hence the name StepWatch. When you start the game, you can continue with the default (free) watch, or you can buy an upgraded watch.
The basic watch will only reward you for 500 meters of movement each day. Even if you walk or run more than this, the activity will not be counted. You need to ‘cool down’ for 24 hours before you can record another 500 meters.
On the other hand, the upgraded watches track longer movements and cool down faster, allowing you to rack up more SWE. There are several other metrics that decide how much SWE you earn per workout, and the better your watch, the better it performs in these metrics, and the more you earn.
There are modes too
To make the game interesting and help users earn more points, the markers have also implemented several gaming modes, they are as follows:
Solo: This is the basic mode of the game. You play alone and the rewards are as described above.
Team: This mode provides you with up to 30% additional rewards, depending on the number of people in your team and the number of NFTs (watches and other collectibles) your team owns. You must also set a captain (who may earn even more rewards) and if you do not stay within 100 meters of their position during the activity, all team mode benefits will be canceled.
Mission: This mode offers daily challenges that can be completed to earn more crypto. Missions can be further divided into 2 kinds, work sharing and quest to perform. Under work sharing, users need to complete tasks such as check-ins and photoshoots. Whereas, with a quest to perform, you need to complete treasure hunts and follow the performance of other users on the app. If you sign up for any of these missions and do not complete them, you will end up losing SWP (yes, we’re getting to this soon).
Lazy-to-earn:
Besides the fitness angel, the app also provides users an option to earn a passive income through staking. There are also 3 different kinds of staking available.
The first is called the Cooker Zone, which is reserved for special users who are known as Watch Makers. These are users who actively invest in StepWatch events. However, the details and rewards of the Cooker Zone are yet to be announced.
The second kind of staking activity is called the Fat Man, where you can stake your NFTs for 3 months and receive interest in the form of SWP tokens. Again, the reward details are yet to be announced but the interest you receive will increase based on the number of NFTs you stake.
Finally, there is the Fleshy Man area, where you can stake SWP for 3 months and obtain Gems and/or Secret Boxes. Gems can be used to enhance the performance of your watch. On the other hand, secret boxes can contain gems, tickets (help reduce cooldown and increase performance times), and SWE/SWP tokens.
How do you get started?
Getting started is easy. Begin by downloading the app (it is available for Android and coming soon on iOS). Then, create an account by registering your email address. Next, you need to link your crypto wallet. If you don’t have a crypto wallet, you can skip this step for now. Finally, you need to choose a watch NFT. You can go with the free watch, or you can buy one of the upgraded ones. Prices start from 0.695 BNB and go all the way up to 5 BNB, that’s around $215 to $1,530.
StepWatch tokenomics
The network uses two different coins: SWP and SWE. SWP is the main coin of the StepWatch network, with a limited supply of 5 billion tokens. It is a utility coin that can be used within and outside the network. Whereas SWE is used to reward players for their M2E activities. SWE will also be for all in-game purchases, such as NFT upgrades. Users can convert SWE to SWP and then trade this for other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies on external marketplaces.
At the time of writing, SWP was trading at $0.411, up 8.24 percent over the last 24 hours, with a trading volume of $860,519 in the same period. Currently, the token is available on MEXC, Gate.io, and Phemex.