In the early morning of May 27, STEPN, a popular "running shoe" project in the currency circle, released the "Announcement on Inventory of Accounts in Mainland China" through its official social platform.

Picture source: Feixiao official website

China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporters Zhao Yi Hu Jinhua Shanghai report

Since the currency circle retreated at the end of September last year, another project has announced the withdrawal of mainland users.

In the early morning of May 27, STEPN, a popular "running shoe" project in the currency circle, released the "Announcement on Inspecting Accounts in Mainland China" (hereinafter referred to as the "Announcement") through its official social platform. The "Announcement" shows that in order to proactively respond to relevant regulatory policies, an inventory of App users will be conducted. If users from mainland China are found, their accounts will be stopped from providing GPS and IP location services at 24:00 on July 15, 2022 in accordance with the terms of use. .

explained in the announcement that the reason for removing users from mainland China was "to proactively respond to relevant regulatory policies." In addition, STEPN also stated that users in mainland China are encouraged to make their own decisions about the assets within the application, and emphasized that the platform has never conducted business in mainland China and does not provide download channels. On the day the

announcement was released, both GMT and GST, the STEPN project tokens, fell and hit the lowest price in history. Prior to this, GMT had already experienced a wave of "diving" declines. Data shows that GMT has been falling since April 29, falling from $4.1788 to $0.8010. GST fell after hitting an all-time high of $9.45 on April 29, with a single-day amplitude of more than 50%. As of press time on June 1, GMT was trading at $1.15, with an intraday decline of 8.77%; GST was at $1.13, with an intraday decline of 20.20%. Since May, GMT has fallen by 69.19% cumulatively, and GST has fallen by 79.35%.

Can you make money by running?

reporter learned that STEPN is one of the hottest projects in the currency circle in early 2022. It is known as the "walking money printing machine" and focuses on the concept of "Move to Earn". To participate in the game, players first need to purchase at least one NFT sneaker launched by STEPN, and earn tokens by walking or running outdoors in the real world to earn income. The

STEPN project operates using a dual-currency mechanism, namely the game token GST and the governance token GMT. Among them, GST is mainly used to purchase sports shoes or repair or upgrade running shoes in the game, and is supplied to users in unlimited quantities; GMT is mainly used for transactions, in-game mortgages, etc., with a total supply of 6 billion.

’s “earn while running” gameplay has allowed the number of STEPN users to grow rapidly. Data shows that in just one month from March to April this year, its daily active users increased from 30,000 to 400,000, and the number of registered users exceeded 1 million. Other public reports show that in January 2022, STEPN completed a US$5 million seed round of financing led by Sequoia Capital India and Folius Ventures; 3 months later, StepN received strategic investment from Binance Labs, with a valuation of $1 billion.

A blockchain practitioner told this reporter that although the model of making money while playing can attract users by "making money", the flaw is also very obvious, that is, it requires a steady stream of new users to maintain normal operations. Once a new user If it decreases, subsequent users will become "leeks".

Because of the similar concept of "making money through sports", when STEPN was first founded, some people compared it with "Qubu". Qubu, established in 2018, claims that "if you walk 4,000 steps a day, you can earn at least 200 yuan a month." But in fact, in order to increase rewards, users need to attract new users through "MLM-style" recruitment, promotion and other methods to obtain dividends. In 2019, Qubu was investigated for suspected pyramid schemes, illegal fund-raising, and financial fraud.

Chen Jia, a researcher at the Institute of International Monetary Affairs at Renmin University of China, told a reporter from the " China Times " that although it claims not to be a Ponzi scheme, in terms of its mechanism design, its dual-currency incentive model is similar to various methods in the crypto asset circle. There is no difference. Although it is developed based on web3.0, it mainly applies the money-making model of the currency circle to the specific ecology of fitness, which is still a Ponzi scheme. Sun Yulin, a senior researcher at

Ouke Cloud Chain Research Institute, told a reporter from China Times that STEPN’s announcement to remove mainland users may have little to do with cryptocurrency. The main reason is that the project needs to use sensitive GPS location information.Unauthorized use or sending relevant information overseas is a violation of relevant laws and regulations. The previously popular game Pokemon Go cannot be used in mainland China and the investigation of Didi is a typical case.

The crypto market is going through a cold winter

The cryptocurrency market is going through a cold winter. Data shows that, with the exception of stablecoins, the currencies with the highest market value since May have mostly fallen in the 40%-60% range. At the beginning of May, Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, fell below US$30,000, hitting a low of US$25,390 since December 2020. It has fallen by more than 60% from the highest point in November 2021; , the second largest market value Ethereum ETH fell as low as below $1,800, down about 57% from its highest point in November 2021. Other cryptocurrencies also experienced varying degrees of decline. According to Coin Market Cap statistics, the overall market value of cryptocurrency is currently close to US$1.29 trillion, a drop of more than 54% from the highest point last year.

In this regard, Wang Juan, secretary-general of the Digital Economy Committee of the Beijing Computer Society, told a reporter from the China Times that the recent market downturn is due to the external environment. During the Russia-Ukraine war, cryptocurrency believers had a negative attitude towards Bitcoin and other The excessive expectations of the digital currency did not become a reality, and decentralized financial freedom under the constraints of electricity and computing power fell into cold thinking in stages. At the same time, national-level digital currencies such as El Salvador have actually become a tool for the governments of these unstable countries to cut leeks. In these countries with frequent currency crises, the U.S. dollar still gives more security than volatile digital currencies. This undoubtedly hits both large capital seeking free flow arbitrage and small retail investors seeking ideal decentralization.

Although the prices of major cryptocurrencies have rebounded significantly recently, and the price of Bitcoin has rebounded to around US$32,000 on June 1, the collapse of stablecoin belief caused by the "blood collapse" of UST has had an impact on the crypto asset circle. Still not to be underestimated. "China Times" reporters reviewed the recent policies of regulatory authorities in various countries and found that many governments have begun to tighten the supervision of crypto assets.

A few days ago, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister publicly stated, "The recent collapse of the cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and Luna has triggered a domino effect on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Many investors have suffered losses and even lost their life savings. He calls on retail investors to invest as much as possible. Avoid cryptocurrencies.”

Argentina’s central bank also recently announced that it would ban banks in the country from providing cryptocurrency services to customers. The Governor of the Bank of Spain and Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision also stated that the cryptocurrency space and decentralized finance need to be regulated quickly to avoid the risk of financial instability.

In this regard, Chen Jia believes that even under the regulatory mechanism of the United States, which has a relatively high tolerance for the currency circle, cryptocurrency is still not legal. The U.S. regulatory authorities regulate the so-called "cryptocurrency" as a major category of crypto assets, but the so-called "cryptocurrency" does not have a systematic real currency function.

According to preliminary statistics from a reporter from China Times, since the beginning of 2022, the U.S. Congress has proposed more than 80 bills related to cryptocurrency and digital assets, involving crypto taxation, central bank digital currency , digital assets and digital asset securities. Transparency regulation, and U.S. officials’ access to and restrictions on cryptocurrency use, among many other aspects.

In Chen Jia's view, there is only one real future for cryptocurrency, which is sovereign cryptocurrency, which will be developed and promoted by the sovereign central bank and implemented by commercial banks. At the same time, strict supervision will be implemented on crypto assets in the currency circle, and no one will be allowed to do so. It participates in monetary functions and prevents it from generating systemic financial risks.

"The current encryption market is uneven, and it is difficult to completely separate arbitrage and innovation. Whether products and services that can truly promote social progress can be produced on a normative basis in the future remains to be seen," Chen Jia said.