Play-to-earn blockchain gaming platforms were among the most impacted by the bloodbath that plagued the cryptocurrency market in the first half of the year.
With dwindling gamers’ interest aggravated by the downturn of the market and the general doubts surrounding the viability of the play-to-earn business model, platforms like STEPN have had to deal with a loss in active users and a general decline in revenue in the past few months.
STEPN in the past few months
The first major blow to the move-to-earn platform came in May when it announced the suspension of its operations for users in mainland China in compliance with regulatory policies.
The announcement came on 26 May, so it had little impact on the index of active users on the network in that month. According to data from Dune Analytics, the move-to-earn platform registered a total of 702,649 monthly active users in May.
However, in June, active users on the network declined by 32% as the platform saw only 474,568 users in the 30-day period.
Falling further by 99% in July, the index for the monthly active users stood at 237,780. So far this month, the move-to-earn platform has registered 85,807 users.
Source: Dune Analytics
Furthermore, despite the news of the suspension of its activity in mainland China, data from Dune Analytics revealed that the number of new and existing daily active users on STEPN reached an all-time high on that same day.
On that day, new users on STEPN grew by 14%, while existing users rallied by 15%. Since then, this has declined steadily. As of 13 August, the daily number of users logged on the gaming platform was 549.
Source: Dune Analytics
In the last month, STEPN, aware of waning gamers’ participation, has tried to reignite players’ interest.
It has launched a series of competitions and introduced a couple of add-on benefits for gamers. However, new, active, and returning users continue to fall despite the attempts made by STEPN.
Source: Dune Analytics
In addition, as the number of gamers fell, new shoes minted on the platform too dropped.
With only 690 shoes minted on 14 August, a 1664% decline was registered from the daily high of 12,176 shoes minted on 21 June. Cumulated shoes minted on STEPN stood at 142,771.
Source: Dune Analytics
GMT & GST-SOL
It is here to be noted that the two tokens that power the STEPN ecosystem have performed differently in the last month.
Exchanging hands at $1.01 at press time, the price of GMT rallied by 7% in the last month. However, the price per GST-SOL token dropped by 23% within the same period.
Source: Santiment
