The revolutionary move-to-earn project STEPN has announced that on July 15, 2022, it will be forced to stop providing GPS services to users in mainland China. The in-game token GST has dropped by 40% as a result of the news.
“In order to actively respond to relevant regulatory policies, STEPN will conduct an inventory of software users. If users in mainland China are found, STEPN will stop providing GPS to their accounts at 24:00 on July 15, 2022 (UTC+8) according to the terms of use and IP location services.”
The token, which is traded on both Binance Smart Chain and Solana, peaked at $7 on May 3 but has since dropped to $1.60, a 77 percent drop from its all-time high.
The native sneaker NFTs required to earn GST in-game have also dropped by 30% in the last 24 hours and are now available for only 9 SOL. It appears that restrictions within mainland China are once again proving to be a major impediment to cryptocurrency innovation.
Surprisingly, STEPN claims that it has not “engaged in any business in mainland China since its establishment.” As a result, it appears that the decision to remove GPS services within China was made to prevent users from circumventing systems to access the application. In order to comply with regulations, STEPN added,
“STEPN has always attached great importance to compliance obligations and always strictly abides by the relevant requirements of local regulatory agencies. We also remind users to beware of scams.”
In-game, STEPN employs several tokens, including SOL, BNB, GST, and GMT. NFTs can be purchased with either SOL or BNB, with the game running on both chains at the same time. GST is a utility token that is used to reward users for moving and upgrading NFTs to improve the user experience. The GMT token, the ecosystem’s governance token, is also down 37% on the day and 78% from all-time highs. GMT’s total market cap has now fallen below $400 million, placing it 84th on the list of top cryptocurrencies.
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