Well-known move-to-earn game STEPN announced on Thursday that it will stop offering IP and GPS-related services to users from mainland China, as required by the authorities. The new ban will come into effect on July 15th.
Deadline set for July 15
The Solana-based social-fi app is a mobile platform that rewards users for walking, jogging, or running. Tracking the location of users is an essential feature that allows the platform to determine their level of participation. Thus, to participate in the game, players must carry their phone during the exercise and make their GPS known to the platform.
In compliance with regulatory requirements – STEPN said via a thread of tweets on Thursday – users whose IP and GPS addresses come from mainland China will not be able to use its service since July 15th. The Web3 firm encouraged Chinese users to start managing the in-app assets accordingly.
To earn in-game rewards, users must first purchase virtual sneakers in the form of NFTs. Prices are denominated in SOL and BNB, so users need to connect the app to their crypto wallets. The thread did not specify what would happen to their in-app assets after the deadline.
The team clarified that it had never launched any business or provided any means for people to download the app within the jurisdiction. Jerry H, the founder of STEPN, noted that Chinese users only account for 5% of the game’s total user base, suggesting that the ban would not significantly impact its business.
GMT plunged amid criticism from community
STEPN uses a dual token model like many P2E gaming platforms such as the popular Axie Infinity. GMT is the governance and unity token with a limited supply of 6 billion units. After the announcement, the price of the token dropped nearly 40% at one point to $0.83. Since then, it had returned to $0.95 at the time of writing. Additionally, the floor price of an NFT sneaker had dropped from 13 SOL to around 8 SOL.
The wild price action came amid criticism derived from the community. In the comment section of the tweets, a user tweeted a screenshot on the platform’s Discord channel, showing that members that chose Chinese as their language have greatly outnumbered users from other countries. Meanwhile, another user expressed frustration over how sudden the announcement was dropped and how volatile its policies had been.
