The play-to-earn gaming industry took the biggest hit as STEPN cryptocurrency prices dropped in the first half of 2022.
Platforms like STEPN have seen a decline in active users and a slump in revenue over the past few months due to the waning interest of gamers amid the market downturn and doubts surrounding the success of the P2E business mode.
Last Months STEPN
In May, the move-to-earn site took a major hit when STEPN announced it would no longer serve Chinese mainland gamers in order to comply with regulatory standards.
The news broke on May 26; consequently, the active user metric for the month of May was briefly impacted. According to May data collected by Dune Analytics, the move-to-earn platform had 702,649 unique monthly users.
But there was a 32% drop in June activity, with only 474,568 users online at any given time. In July, the number of monthly active users dropped 99 percent, to 237,780. Meanwhile, there were 85,807 users actively playing on the move-to-earn network in August.
Furthermore, data from Dune Analytics reveals that on the day the China service suspension news broke, STEPN’s average daily active users (both new and returning) reached a new high. New STEPN users grew by 14% on that day, while existing users grew by 15%. But ever since then, it’s been going down, and down, and down. On August 13 there were already 549 people using STEPN every day.
After noticing a decline in player activity over the past month, STEPN has been working to re-engage the community. Gamer interest has been piqued by the platform’s introduction of a number of competitions and new features. New, returning, and active users, despite the efforts, continue to decline.
The number of new “shoes” being created on the network also declined as the number of gamers declined. From 12,176 performances on June 21 to 690 on August 14, that is a significant drop of 1,664%. There were about 142,771 pairs of shoes produced by STEPN.
The GST-SOL and the GMT
The two coins that power the STEPN ecosystem have been performing differently. As of the time of writing, GMT was trading at $1.01, up 7% month-to-date. Nonetheless, GST-SOL fell by 23% during that time.
To what extent are you satisfied with the move-to-earn system? Will it once again capture the interest of gamers? Feel free to respond with your thoughts in the space provided.
