Published on: 19/07/2022

STEPN generates $122.5 million in Q2 despite bearish market

Popular Solana-based gaming app STEPN is showing signs of resilience by keeping itself in the black despite a volatile bear market and the waves of DDoS attacks against it.

STEPN, developed by Australia-based Find Satoshi Lab, is a move-to-earn app that has gained recent fame due to its system, which is similar to the play-to-earn model, but with an unusual twist where users are rewarded in cryptocurrency for their step count in the app.

The app has generated $122.5 million in Q2, and now Find Satoshi is planning to use 5 percent of the revenue to start buybacks. It would also use the 5 percent to burn a portion of its native token supply off the blockchain and enhance its security measures. The project previously earned $26 million in Q1.

The current circulating supply of GMT — its native governance token — is 600,000,000, and the buyback is projected to remove about 5-6 million from the blockchain. As a volatility prevention measure, the developer would conduct the burn and subsequent buyback in a span of a few weeks.

Find Satoshi Lab additionally revealed its other upcoming plans, saying, “In addition to the buyback and burn program, STEPN will allocate capital reserves to improve upon existing features and build out the team.”

DDoS attacks and exploits

Despite the general success, it is known that STEPN has experienced waves of DDoS attacks. It first experienced attacks in April and then again in May. The 25 million DDoS attacks cause network congestion in the application, slowing down the application’s transaction significantly.

Find Satoshi Lab advised its users to stop using the application for a while during these DDoS waves, saying, “We recommend you take some rest during the maintenance or otherwise the work-outs may not be recorded properly. Our engineers are working hard to fix the problems.”

STEPN tokens decreased in value following the attacks — the GMT token’s social dominance dropped by 70 percent, and its volume fell by 92 percent. The app has also experienced instances where players have exploited the system by “GPS Spoofing” or using fake locations using GPS as well as bots to record their steps, further driving confidence in the app and its ecosystem down.

As discussed above, however, STEPN has said it would use some of its Q2 profit to increase server security as well as other enhancements. It is hoped that the SMAC anti-cheat system that the developer is planning to set in place would be able to deal with cheaters and spoofers, resulting in an overall more effective ban system.

In light of the recent earnings news and STEPN’s plan of action to deal with the issue, GMT has shown signs of recovery and has nominally risen after it was once predicted that it would be going the bearish route. It is now trading at 85 cents after dropping 71 percent from its all-time high of $4.11.

Its in-game token, GST, is also seeing a rise in social dominance following the waves of DDoS attacks by 261 percent but a decrease in social volume by 97 percent.