Author: Jia Ran, W Labs
[Editor's Note] Miss Jiaran has been following the STEPN series for several years. Since STEPN GO opened its beta test in September, we have also focused on it as a case study that can be written in the current sluggish market. Really, it is too difficult to find a target willing to write something when everyone is losing interest now. The FSL team has made a lot of innovations in new products as always, especially behind these innovations are the pain points of the blockchain game industry. Regardless of the results, the unity of knowledge and action is worthy of admiration. This article is very long. Based on the key points in the article, we have also listed a table summary and added some immature comments for everyone to throw bricks.
In the crypto market, navigating bull and bear markets is the biggest test for a project and its team. Recently,#STEPNGOhas once again ignited the enthusiasm of the community - since the beta test was opened on September 5, the token has performed well (up 752% in 7 days), and the community has responded enthusiastically. What makes this "second generation running shoe" project so attractive? Can it reproduce the phenomenal success of STEPN in 2022? In the face of new market opportunities, is there still room for ordinary investors to participate? Can the violent fluctuations and challenges that#STEPNhas experienced be avoided?
If you are interested in these questions, please continue reading. This should be the most detailed first-hand Chinese investment research material about STEPN GO on the entire Internet, specially prepared for everyone who wants to find opportunities in this new trend👇
Preface
“Only after going through bull and bear markets can the truth be revealed”
A few days ago, I talked with Bitwater about his investment experience in the past year. He mentioned that his most important alpha income mainly came from the BTC ecosystem and the FSL ecosystem. As an OG in the cryptocurrency circle who has long been free, he has experienced many bull and bear markets. His investment philosophy and mentality training have always had a profound influence on me.
When investing in a product, look at the team first. In the cryptocurrency world, it is especially easy for the project party to be "soft rugged", and the reliability of the team is crucial when choosing a project. Yawn and Jerry, co-founders of the FSL team, have used more than 3 years to prove that they are one of the few reliable teams in the cryptocurrency world. Whether it is a bull market or a bear market, they always focus on product polishing, constantly bringing surprises and value returns to the community. Such continuous investment and firm execution are one of the important reasons why FSL can stand firm in the crypto market.
STEPN GO's innovative and optimized design
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars and learning from the experience of multiple product designs and operations, FSL has made comprehensive and targeted optimizations on STEPN GO from economic models, market operation strategies to user experience:
Economic model optimization: How to achieve more sustainable and healthy growth?
Blockchain game projects generally face the dilemma of a "death spiral" - old users earn money from new users through mining, withdrawal and sale. Once old users stop reinvesting and new user growth slows down, the entire project will fall into a "death spiral". The traditional blockchain game economic model is difficult to fundamentally solve this problem. Common means such as staking, points, multiple asset nesting dolls, and pie-in-the-sky PUA methods are all aimed at extending expectations as much as possible, allowing old players to reinvest, and delaying the selling pressure of mining, withdrawal and sale, which can only delay the occurrence of the problem.
STEPN GO attempts to build a more resilient and sustainable economic ecosystem to solve this dilemma by completely reconstructing the energy system, diversifying the game mechanism, and introducing and restricting large-scale farmer behavior.
1. Energy system reconstruction
In the old version of STEPN, the energy system caused serious inflation problems. Users continued to produce tokens by purchasing shoe NFTs, and the stability of the economy was completely dependent on reinvestment and the entry of new users. When supply and demand are unbalanced, a large number of low-priced NFTs are accumulated, causing prices to fall, and the entire economic system enters a vicious cycle. Although the HP system was added later to increase the cost of NFT maintenance and the five-in-one synthesis mechanism was used to increase the consumption of low-priced NFTs, these measures did not fundamentally solve the problem.
In STEPN GO, the economic model has been boldly reconstructed, removing the traditional model of "holding shoe NFTs to gain energy and recovering over time" and adopting a new design of "burning shoe NFTs to gain energy and daily energy limit". This design requires users to obtain energy by destroying NFTs, ensuring the continuous demand for low-priced NFTs and effectively avoiding the problem of floor NFT backlogs.
It's easier to understand if you compare it to a game mode:
In the old STEPN model, users only need to hold shoes to continuously generate tokens, which is similar to a "time free game" and users do not need to pay any additional costs.
STEPN GO is more like a "time-paying game" where users burn shoes to earn points (energy), and the amount of point cards used can be adjusted flexibly. This mechanism not only eliminates users' anxiety, but also allows them to control costs according to actual needs, thereby reducing the burden on the system.
2. Multiple mining pools and gaming mechanisms
In order to further optimize the user's profit model, STEPN GO introduced a multi-pool mechanism. In the initial stage, only the "efficiency pool" was opened, and users can obtain $GGT by consuming energy. In the subsequent update plan of the project, STEPN GO will gradually open three other pools for users to choose from:
Charm Mining Pool: produces clothing fragments that users can use to customize personalized outfits, driving consumption toward luxury goods and non-productive assets;
Karma Pool: Provides PvP gameplay, where users can earn GMT by competing with other players;
Luck Mining Pool: Users have the opportunity to obtain mysterious treasure chests and random raw stones through exercise, which increases the fun of the game and the uncertainty of rewards.
Each time a campaign is launched, users can only choose one mining pool to obtain income. Through this design, STEPN GO realizes the diversification of user needs and avoids the inflation pressure caused by the overproduction of a single token. Users can also flexibly switch mining pools according to market demand and personal strategies, ensuring the dynamic adjustment ability of the entire economic model.
More importantly, this multi-pool design increases the game mechanism between users. Different players need to choose the best strategy according to market changes and personal needs. The user's behavior pattern is more decentralized, avoiding over-reliance on the output model of a single token, thus achieving a balance between supply and demand and reducing dependence on new user funds.
3. HAUS system and social economic drive
One of the highlights of STEPN GO is its HAUS system, which closely integrates the economic model with users' social interactions through invitation mechanisms and social relationships.
Want to join? You can't even buy shoes with money. You must generate an "invitation code" through old players to join. The basic threshold for old users to generate invitation codes is "consume 10 energy + burn at least 2 shoes". Every 10 energy points + non-soul-bound shoes consumed can generate 1 invitation code. According to the current shoe price of 5400 U, it is equivalent to someone spending at least 6000 U to send out 1 shoe rental invitation code, and at least 11400 U to send out a buddy activation code - behind each invitation code, it means that existing players have already invested a lot in the project.
When invitation codes are so precious, if you are a player who has already made a profit in the game, would you rather give it to a stranger or a familiar relative or friend? Or the girl you like and want to show your affection to? This mechanism prompts old players to be more inclined to invite relatives, friends or people with social connections whom they trust, rather than randomly giving it to strangers. This not only enhances the stability of the community, but also enhances the players' sense of identity with the game and the community. Through this invitation system based on real social relationships, STEPN GO will be able to build a highly interactive and stable community ecology, reduce the influx of random users, and avoid the risks brought by irresponsible invitations.
In the future, with the addition of luxury goods consumption and conspicuous items (such as rare suits), STEPN GO will no longer rely solely on users' "digging, withdrawing and selling" behavior, but will gradually guide players to develop in a more personalized and socialized consumption direction. The community built through the invitation system is an important guarantee for achieving this goal - the transformation from "digging, withdrawing and selling" by all members to some people paying for conspicuous consumption needs will no longer be a "pie in the sky" slogan, but a real possibility of realization. STEPN GO can also truly transform from a financial incentive to a more long-term and stable social-driven economic system.
4. Restrictions on mining, withdrawal and selling and studios’ dissuasion
The mining, withdrawal, selling and farmer issues are challenges faced by almost all web3 projects. In particular, efficient, rational and ruthless studio-type efficient farmers usually use efficient multi-account operations or script automation operations to drain market resources in a short period of time, aggravate market pressure, cause token prices to collapse, and have a devastating impact on the project.
STEPN GO has introduced a series of mechanisms to softly restrict mining, withdrawal and selling behaviors, and effectively dissuade studio-type large-scale farmers.
Hidden costs in time and resources
In STEPN GO, users' earnings are linked to their fitness levels. Each new user must go through a 14-day fitness level change process, during which earnings gradually decrease from 100% to 50%, and eventually return to the 150% "strong feet" buff state. This state is not permanent. If enough energy is not consumed within 5 days (at least 2 energies), the 150% buff will be lost and earnings will regress to the 50% "sore feet" state.
Breeding new NFTs also increases the time cost - users need to consume 15 energy points to get a mint quota. Users can use their energy more efficiently and get mint quotas faster by renting out shoes, but all mint quotas will be reclaimed at the end of the 14-day rental period. This change makes the pure "breeding flow" in the old STEPN have no room for survival.
High wear limits and withdrawal costs
In STEPN GO, a fee of 5 GGT is deducted when withdrawing coins (10 GGT for NFT withdrawals), further limiting users' frequent withdrawals. This adds additional economic costs to mining, withdrawing and selling, forcing users to be more cautious in withdrawal decisions, and effectively slowing down the token selling pressure in the market. In addition, the design of continuously burning shoes to obtain energy ensures the continuous consumption of NFTs, fundamentally reducing the problem of excessive backlog of NFTs and tokens.
Dissuading farmers from working in the studio
STEPN GO is the type that studio farmers don’t want to touch. The revenue design is complex and the return is uncertain. It is difficult to register in batches. The time cost is high and it is impossible to quickly cash out and leave. The project party has strong technical protection capabilities against cheating... I can’t go into details dddd🤐
I believe that this new economic model can bring stronger sustainable development capabilities to STEPN GO, and may provide a new solution for other blockchain game projects.
Optimization of marketing promotion strategy
I have studied the promotion and marketing strategies of many projects in depth, and was fortunate enough to have served as a consultant to design the promotion and marketing strategies and specific implementation plans for a top project. I know that "airdrops are a double-edged sword" - airdrops are a means of incentivizing users by distributing assets, which is indeed effective, but if used improperly, the backlash effect is also obvious:
Airdrop not as expected --> scolded
There are loopholes in the airdrop rules --> Being scolded
Sending large amounts of airdrops to the “wrong” users --> Disaster
The empty investment assets are far greater than the initial demand of the project --> greater disaster
On the other hand, STEPN GO's airdrop and market operation strategies have been very stable and successful so far, and are worth studying by every project. Let's see how they did it:
The first wave of soul-bound assets was given out through a 4-year staking lottery: this wave screened target users with high loyalty, who served as seed users for the launch of new projects, and also brought them "first-time mining rewards". The lottery format is much fairer than setting up complex rules, and the soul-binding and random distribution method effectively discouraged those who plundered and arbitrage studios, which is a very clever design.
Provide a "single shoe" consolation prize for users who did not win the pledge lottery: at least 2 shoes are needed to enter the market, 1 shoe is burned to obtain energy, and the other shoe is used for walking. The current market price of 5400u shoes is given away for free, and you can start earning 200u a day by buying another one. Who can resist this temptation? This part of users is also the main demand side at the current stage
Offline events gave away "Single Shoes" invitation codes to real users: The meet-ups held in Taipei and Japan in August attracted more than a hundred runners, and more than a hundred "Single Shoes" invitation codes were given away on site, further activating the target user group.
Recruiting GO'ers and cold-starting the community: Usually Web3 projects will find KOLs to release paid content and provide token/NFT assets as compensation. However, the quality of KOLs varies. Many KOLs can only bring short-term hype to the project party and fail to achieve the expected results. The airdropped assets will also be sold, forming selling pressure. On the other hand, STEPN GO did not choose this traditional method, but completed a lot of early content creation, community education and publicity preheating work by recruiting GO'ers (similar to low-profile ambassadors).
Let old users decide who can enter for free with "0 risk": As I mentioned before, only old players who have opened the Haus system can invite new users. These old players can rent out their extra shoes to newcomers and share the profits in proportion. Newcomers can join at 0 cost and 0 risk. The owners of the Haus system will get higher energy consumption efficiency and faster mint quota, as well as the emotional value of being needed and respected. Sociality is fully utilized here. Some people may ask: "Why should I give it to others? Isn't it better to give it to a small account?" —— But STEPN GO's AI anti-cheating system is very strict, restricting technology and multi-opening behavior. Running itself also has physical limits, and not everyone only looks at benefits. Many people prefer to share with their close friends or family. As long as not every new user is a "small account", this system can be stably expanded.
Strictly control the user growth rate and circulating market value: STEPN GO limits the user growth rate through the invitation code system to ensure that the initial liquidity and token price remain stable. The current GGT price is very well maintained and rising steadily. (I have no evidence to say that this is the project party's control of the market 🤐, just to express: when the circulation and user volume are small, it is relatively easy to pull the market and protect the market) In the currency circle, there is no better advertisement than the continuous rise in the price of the currency. Rising is justice. There is no exchange, no contract and no borrowing of coins, which also effectively curbs speculation in the currency.
The founder personally went out to promote the game: The recruitment advertisement of Black Myth Wukong Studio requires that developers must love and deeply play their own games. For an excellent product, the developers must be its most loyal users. Since the release of STEPN GO, co-founder @Jerry10240 has been posting his running data on Twitter every day. Today, he suddenly released a first-come-first-served invitation code for renters, the best Trainer shoes, 5:5 high commission, and 4-week rental period! Hurry up and give him a little bell to follow him.
User experience optimization
Web3’s user experience has always been a huge obstacle to large-scale adoption, especially in terms of account management and initial asset acquisition. Although the “Connect wallet” design was once regarded as a revolutionary breakthrough by people in the Web3 circle, it has become the biggest obstacle for ordinary users.
In STEPN GO, the team is deeply aware of this pain point and has made bold optimizations in user experience, especially in the login process and asset management. These improvements not only greatly reduce the user's learning cost, but also make the Web3 experience closer to Web2, providing the basic conditions for truly promoting mass adoption.
1. A more Web2-friendly account login experience
Web3 platform has always advocated the design of "wallet as account", but this is also the biggest obstacle that discourages ordinary users. Obtaining initial assets on the chain, cross-chain, wallet mnemonic backup... Each step is a headache for learning. Privy product is certainly the leader among web3 account login products, but little do people know that STEPN, which was launched earlier than Privy, also uses email registration and login, which effectively lowers the threshold for users to enter. At that time, it achieved the results of breaking the circle and mass adoption, and became the brightest star in the web3 industry in 22 years.
With STEPN GO, the login experience is further simplified. Only one FSL ID is needed, and the login process is almost identical to that of Web2 products. For example, Apple users only need two steps to register an account:
1) Click “continue with Apple”
2) Click “Create passkey”
Next, users only need to scan their face to log in. This extremely simplified design completely breaks the wallet barrier of Web3. Users no longer need to understand the complex wallet system, and the threshold is instantly lowered.
2. Lower the learning threshold and simplify the operation
In the old version of STEPN, new users have a high learning cost: which shoes to choose? How to allocate shoe attributes? What is HP repair? How to use gems and treasure chests? Each choice requires time to study.
In STEPN GO, the design concept of "Less is better" is further adhered to. Newcomers only need to understand one thing - they can make money by walking. There is no HP maintenance, no gem selection, and the attribute of shoes is only "efficiency". There is no complicated decision-making process. This simplified design allows users to quickly get started as soon as they enter the system, and start exercising and making money directly, and the learning cost is compressed to a minimum.
3. More convenient asset management and cross-chain transfers
STEPN GO has also made great optimizations in cross-chain operations and asset management. Through FSL ID, users only need to register and log in with an email address to obtain a multi-chain address, and can directly complete the swap of encrypted assets within the FSL ID, and can easily manage the asset mapping and association between multi-chain products within the platform, avoiding the complex cross-chain transfer process in traditional Web3 products.
4. The Haus system cleverly solves the financial threshold for new users
For new users, purchasing Crypto assets and taking financial risks has always been the biggest psychological burden. STEPN GO cleverly circumvents this problem through the Haus system.
The Haus system allows old users to pack their shoes into activation codes and rent them out or give them to new users. In the rental mode, old players provide shoes, are responsible for shoe selection, upgrades, and points, and renters only need to enter the activation code to start making money at 0 cost, without having to worry about the risk of losing Crypto assets. In the gift mode, new users can also enter the activation code to get started. They no longer have to figure out a series of complicated operations such as wallets, gas fees, NFT transfers, etc. when friends give them shoes.
Most importantly, this design ensures that every new user is "brought in" and there is always someone to guide them, avoiding letting newcomers explore the world of Crypto alone. It cleverly solves the financial threshold and risk issues, which may be an important step for Web3 products to move towards mass application.
Is it time for STEPN GO to break out of the circle again?
This year's Crypto market is difficult for almost everyone. Market sentiment is low. The "old investors" have experienced too much and are afraid of being cut and running slowly. They are holding their pockets tightly and investing cautiously.
In this mood, the performance of STEPN GO is particularly eye-catching. The Web3 market is in urgent need of a reliable and sustainable project, and the performance of STEPN GO seems to have hit everyone's expectations. So, how is STEPN GO different from STEPN in 2022? How did the FSL team lay the foundation for this "re-breakthrough"?
What is the difference between STEPN GO and STEPN 2022?
In 2022, STEPN became an overnight sensation thanks to its “Move to Earn” campaign, but as the market changed, the project exposed some problems, causing it to fall into a low ebb and difficulties.
STEPN GO is not only the second generation of running shoes, but also a brand new product:
Sustainable economic model: On the basis of continuing the running health narrative, the economic model of the entire product has been reconstructed to make it more resilient and sustainable, or to explore a new paradigm that can truly break the "death spiral" curse.
Healthy user growth: STEPN GO strictly controls the speed of user joining through the invitation code system. This method not only ensures the quality of users, but also avoids the market pressure caused by the previous user explosion. At the same time, with the help of the Haus system, the model of old users bringing new users improves the interaction between users and further enhances the stickiness of the community.
Simplified user experience: Compared with 2022, STEPN GO makes the user experience simpler and easier to understand. Now there is no need to study the complex properties of shoes, nor to consider the cost of shoe repairs. Users can earn tokens just by walking and exercising. This extremely simplified design not only lowers the learning threshold for users, but also makes it easy for novices to get started.
STEPN GO has the potential to detonate the market again.