Move-to-earn, often known as M2E, is a collection of numerous blockchain-based applications that reward users for engaging in physical activities like walking, exercising, staying fit, or just going about their daily lives in a healthy manner.
It is wonderful news for fitness enthusiasts and people who want to maintain a fitness and health goal since they will get rewards for doing so. As they engage in physical activities in the real world, users receive incentives that can be redeemed for things like cryptocurrencies or NFTs. Some of these platforms compensate users in the form of their native tokens for performing fitness-related activities, however, the method through which these applications produce rewards might vary slightly from platform to platform. Rewards or tokens can then be exchanged for products and services inside the platform, or they can be traded for other cryptocurrencies, depending on the situation.
M2E follows in the footsteps of the popular play-to-earn movement, which was fueled by a blockchain technology application that achieved widespread acceptance within the gaming community last year. Gamers were awarded in the form of cryptocurrency or cash for playing, and because blockchain technology allows users to trade from any location, players are able to receive and transfer compensation for their participation.
The phrase "move-to-earn" was invented and initially popularized by the Web3 lifestyle app STEPN in September 2021, and it has since gained widespread acceptance. It is a GPS-based game in which the application records user movements and steps. To begin exercising and earning, users must either mint a pair of sneaker NFTs using Solana, or they can rent a pair from the marketplace and split the rewards with the owner. Once the sneaker is equipped, users can start running and earning rewards in the Green Satoshi Token (GST), the platform's native utility token.
Since then, M2E has been adopted by a number of other applications that reward users for their participation in physical activities. Another example is OliveX, a fitness metaverse that rewards players with its native DOSE tokens for completing workout-based gaming in the company's mobile blockchain game.
Despite the fact that M2E is a new sector, it is gaining substantial traction in the cryptocurrency market. According to data from CoinMarketCap, STEPN presently leads the M2E ecosystem, with a market capitalization that dwarfs the sum of the market capitalizations of all other M2E tokens put together. At the time of writing, STEPH's market capitalization accounts for 95 percent of the entire token market capitalization of the sector. This indicates how new this sector is. Despite the current bearish state of the crypto market, the total market cap and the total trading volume for M2E applications are also growing, with 16.59% and 70.04% respectively in a 24-hour timeframe.
We're only at the beginning of this journey in terms of one of the several blockchain applications toward which investors and enthusiasts may look forward. Users can expect to earn a few dollars more from their otherwise regular daily activities. However, as more users join and the reward pools are divided among more individuals, earning on many of these platforms can become increasingly difficult. Most M2E programs also need users to get virtual NFTs before they can make any money.
The fact that some of these applications have achieved success in a short period of time is also encouraging for investors, but only time will tell what the future holds.