The future of blockchain games: Move-to-earn trend

6 Jun 2022 | Cryptocurrency news

Regardless of whether you liked it or absolutely hated it with a passion, you can’t say that Pokemon Go hasn’t had a huge impact on the world of mobile gaming. 

It pretty much revolutionized the system by bringing so much attention to the concept of augmented reality on your smartphone’s GPS. This small change broke records at the time, and now we are witnessing what could very well be the next big thing coming out from the shadows.

We are talking about M2E, or Move-to-Earn games. These games combine the mobile augmented concept with the classic play-to-earn style that we have all come to love by now. 

What is Move-to-Earn (M2E)?

What really sets this new system apart from all the others out there is definitely the fact that it takes full advantage of the cryptocurrencies and NFTs that it has under its belt. 

Axie Infinity for example took this concept and added it to the tactical battle genre, bringing in a lot of attention through its use of tradeable assets. This meant that you could use Axie’s NFTs and tokens to trade on the marketplace, making earning online rewards all the more appreciated considering the fact that you could trade those up for real money afterwards. 

While most apps nowadays have their very own coins and such, they don’t actually have any value outside of the game’s ecosystem. Look at V-Bucks for example, they are obviously worth something while playing Fortnite, but as soon as you log out of your game the value of the V-Bucks becomes nonexistent. 

Through the use of Blockchain technology though, coupled with smart contracts, more and more platforms have decided to make their virtual assets tokenized, aka tradeable. This means that even if you stop playing those games, you can still trade the tokens you won online and make a profit. They don’t lose out on their value, bringing a whole new layer to these games that have never been possible before the emergence of Blockchain technology.

Many people have also compared M2E with Play-to-earn (P2E) games and to some extent, they can rightly do so. The two genres reward players for a certain activity, and the more they perform that activity, the more rewards they will receive. 

The difference here though is that while P2E games reward their player base for playing their games, M2E games reward them for actually moving around. 

In order to calculate this, M2E games make use of your smartphone’s GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, and of course, magnetometer. 

They took this idea from apps such as MyFitnessPal and Fitbit yes, but they took it one step further by applying Blockchain technology to the mix. By adding tradeable tokens that the community receives for physical activity, the apps have seen quite a lot of success so far. 

Top 5 Move To Earn Projects

If you want a few good examples of M2E games that this relatively simple concept and changed the landscape around with it, look no further than: 

  • Genopets

Genopets has actually been the very first project that decided to make use of blockchain technology as the foundation of its Move-to-earn concept through the Solana blockchain. 

According to the CEO of Genopets, the main purpose of the app is to reward the users with “passive income as an incentive to stay physically active”. 

In order to start your Genopets journey you just need to get your hands on a playable NFT. You can either purchase these yourself or you can take part in NFT minting, which is a hundred percent supported by Genopets, unlike Axie which force you to purchase three NFTs before you can start playing.

  • Dustland Runner

Dustland Runner was actually developed by OliveX, and it features a simplistic series of tasks and missions that you need to complete to get your rewards in time. 

Some days you will be challenged to do 22 pushups, other days you will need to run around and get your cardio done, and the more you do the more money will be attributed to your Polygon wallet. 

  • StepN

This app is unique in that in order to actually start using it you will need to get your hands on the unique activation codes which are not as straightforward to get to as you may think.

But as soon as you’re in you will be able to purchase shoe NFTs through the platform, and the more you move around the more in-game rewards you will receive.

  • SweatCoin 

Sweatcoin was yet another pioneer in the industry as it first came into being around 2015. In order to reward you, the platform will count the number of steps you take every day and by the end of the week, you will be allocated a certain number of SweatCoin tokens. 

For every 1000 steps, you get 1 Sweat token, so while this may be a bit of a harder challenge it is going to be quite rewarding in the long run (no pun intended). 

  • DotMoovs

As the platform’s name implies, instead of being rewarded for jogging around all day long, the app rewards you for grooving, dancing, and pretty much just flailing around as much as possible. This is quite unique and it is sure to get you to lose a lot of calories in the process while also earning a lot of money. 

Besides these amazing apps, you also have quite a handful of upcoming projects that are sure to live up to the hype. For example, we have Olivex, DEFY, Metz, and Fitmint and that’s just barely scratching the top of the iceberg that is Move-to-Earn platforms. 

Conclusion

You can dive into the concept and start enjoying the M2E model now by purchasing the Move-to-Earn coins directly with Fiat through our website.