2Earn games have taken over the crypto world as of late, and if you aren’t up to speed, you probably have no idea what we’re talking about. A look into the blockchain games and earning models as part of the 2Earn trend – and why Help2Earn is the more sustainable way forward.
Play2Earn
A new trend in the crypto market made waves last year called Play2Earn, which is essentially just that – you play games to earn crypto. Sounds like a dream, right?
Unlike the classic gaming industry, where you play solely to have fun, Play2Earn allows gamers to earn cryptocurrency with real-world value.
Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis launched the Axie Infinity game as the frontrunner of this movement last year, where users care for Axies, or digital pets. Furthermore, each Axie represents an NFT. The user’s ultimate goal is to earn ‘small love potions’ (called SLP), with which they can create new Axies, and have other advantages.
But what entices Play2Earn gamers?
There’s a reason why Axie Infinity gained 1 million daily users last August. Namely, ‘SLP’ thus acts as a cryptocurrency that can be bought and sold in the crypto market, with users bringing in around 1,500 SLPs per day (or $270) back in September 2021, according to Hackernoon. Simply put, you can make money in the real world by investing time in virtual reality.
Okay, we get it now.
What about Move2Earn?
And the answer to sitting at home all day playing games? Enter Move2Earn, another crypto movement that allows you to make money while moving – literally. Taking over Play2Earn in popularity this year primarily thanks to Web3 lifestyle app STEPN, Move2Earn not only has a positive impact on your health, but users are incentivized to exercise with financial motivation, which makes working out all the easier in the end.
But how does Move2Earn work?
Let’s take STEPN, for example. STEPN is a mobile game you buy into with an initial investment and get an NFT sneaker in return. By running, jogging, or walking outside, users can earn STEPN’s in-game currency, GST, which is used for breeding, upgrading, or repairing sneakers. Exercise habits are tracked by wearable devices, step counters, augmented reality, GPS, and NFTs, with tokens rewarded that can be converted to fiat money.
Move2Earn fuses digital art, design, and real-life activities, making it simple for those outside the Web3 world to get involved in this earning model.
But are they sustainable?
“Games like Axie Infinity typically tend to rely on their player base continuing to grow over time since existing players will generally look to sell their tokens when it becomes profitable to do so. There has to be someone to buy these tokens, and this is where the ‘new money’ comes from,” said Charnjit Bansi, Vice President (VP) of Game Design at Polygon Studios for Cryptonews.com.
Cryptonews.com also digs into the question of whether the concept is an oxymoron.
“Earnings are usually produced when an individual or entity produces something of real-world value, but what real-world value can playing a video game ever produce?”
Move2Earn, however, has been dubbed a Ponzi scheme – or ‘Ponzinomics.’ Namely, there is a tall entry cost (between $100 to $300), and just like Play2Earn, it relies on new users to join and for the majority of old users to not cash out.
There is hope for Move2Earn to move forward with better tokenomics. Like Help2Earn, for example.
“We are building the first Help2Earn model with Triend. Our project is all about helping other users discover and book experiences. We have built the ecosystem to be sustainable as it focuses heavily on users rewarding each other rather than just the protocol rewarding early adopters. The rewards generated are supplemented with booking real-world services, so we don’t suffer the Ponzi economics of everything staying within our ecosystem,” said Joshua Mudway, Triend’s COO.
Want to learn more? Check out the Triend app!
