STEPN: Amid reports of spam accounts and DDOS attacks, how are its tokens reacting

Recent unfortunate events that have trailed STEPN, a move-to-earn blockchain project appear to be proving skeptics right about the imminent failure of play-to-earn blockchain games.

On 4 June, STEPN, via a twitter thread, informed its users of the implementation of an “Anti-Cheating” infrastructure into the gaming platform. Sustainability as the number of users continues to climb is a major problem faced by blockchain games with a play-to-earn business model. 

On STEPN, it was observed that some players use bots and GPS spoofing to inflate the number of tokens generated by using the application.

In the Twitter post, STEPN noted that following the system upgrade that led to hours of downtime on the platform, some runners were identified as bots via the new system. This was a result of 25 million DDOS attacks sent to the server within a short period of time. This caused some users to be kicked off the platform.

Assuring its users that all was back to normal, STEPN confirmed that the network had been restored and “data transfers have reopened and remain stable.” It also stated that users need not be worried about being tagged as bot again.

In light of these events, how did STEPN’s GMT and GST-SOL tokens react?

Runners continue to look away

In the last 24 hours, both STEPN tokens have recorded declines. Exchanging hands at a price of $0.9537 per GMT token, the token suffered a 6% decline in the last 24 hours. With a 20.56% drop in trading volume in the last 24 hours, increased distribution appeared to be underway at press time.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Also on a downtrend was STEPN’s GST-SOL token which recorded a 19.18% loss  in the last 24 hours. However, a Down Volume was spotted. At press time, volume was up by 11.53% while press was down. This generally represents a shift towards a correction or bear market.

Source: CoinMarketCap

As for movements on the price charts, increased selling pressure was spotted. With the Relative Strength Index (RSI) pegging its position at 35 in a downward curve and the 50 EMA trend line spotted above price at press time, the bears were having a field day.

Source: TradingView

Also struggling to ward off the bears, the RSI for the GST-SOL token was spotted below the 50 neutral region at the 26 index.

Source: TradingView

When all the chips fall down 

On-chain data showed that the GMT token has suffered quite a bit on a social front for a while now. At the time of writing, social dominance was seen at 0.943%, accruing over 70% decline in about five days. Within the same time, the social volume has also gone down by 92%.

Source: Santiment

The GST-SOL on the other hand recorded gains in its social dominance. In the last four days, this value has grown by 261%. The social volume however suffered a 97% decline in the last five days.

Source: Santiment