China Bans Move-To-Earn Game Stepn, Native Token Crashes

Stepn, a Solana-based “move-to-earn” game, will officially stop its services in China to comply with regulations starting mid-July. The announcement sent GMT, the native token of the game, down on a bearish path.

As of 11:56 pm ET, GMT is down by 37.62% in the last 24 hours following the announcement by the official Stepn Twitter account.

Stepn is a "move-to-earn" game, i.e., the players in the game have to purchase sneakers in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from the in-game marketplace and then, run, jog, or walk to earn rewards in the form of GMT.

"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," said Stepn in one of the Twitter posts.

It was not clear why Chinese regulators closed in on Stepn.

When the game stops providing GPS support, players who own its membership-like sneaker NFTs won't be able to earn tokens for their steps.

Following the announcement, the price of GMT plunged nearly 38%, reducing the market capitalization of the token to $516 million, showed data from CoinMarketCap.

GMT has seen a marvelous run in 2022 following the popularity and adoption of Stepn. The price of 1 GMT spiked from $0.1003 on March 11 to an all-time high of $4.11 on April 28. At the time of writing, the price of 1 GMT is $0.8, nearly 79.07% off its all-time high.

"STEPN has always attached great importance to compliance obligations and always strictly abides by the relevant requirements of local regulatory agencies," the game added in another Twitter post, not mentioning the exact policies of the government.