Forget gaming for profit—crypto may soon monetize dozens of daily activities

According to Footprint Analytics, there are currently over 1,400 GameFi projects. But P2E games, spearheaded by the popularity of Axie Infinity, have attracted criticism for being unimaginative, mechanical, and speculation-driven. 

The reality is, very few people would continue playing the current batch of GameFi titles if it wasn’t for the money. Hence the guild system, where NFT owners lease their assets to scholars in poor countries, emerged to drive activity in the games. But what if you could earn money doing things you actually enjoy? Or for reinforcing beneficial habits? That’s the promise of a new batch of “X-to-Earn” projects—the X stands for any activity you can think of—notably Move-to-Earn game STEPN. 

Do these activity-oriented GameFi projects have a bright, sustainable future, or are they all hype? In this article, we’ll explore some of the most interesting new X-to-Earn projects.

1. Movement

• Move-to-Earn

The most famous Move-to-Earn project is StepN, which expanded the idea of GameFi beyond traditional gaming. Users use purchased shoes to walk, jog or run to earn tokens. StepN connects health with earnings and community. According to Footprint Analytics, the price of StepN has also shown good performance since its launch.

Footprint Analytics – StepN Token Price

There are also various imitations of StepN, but their development is far from StepN’s due to the first-mover advantage. Among them, Genopets combines sports with in-game pet upgrades and has more game attributes. Other projects are OliveX, Dotmoovs, GENO, Movey and WIRTUAL.

• Drive-to-Earn

HiveMapper is the first crypto-enabled dashcam that uses crypto technology to allow users to mine token HONEY by growing the map while driving. The maps we use in our lives are mostly from big companies like Google, and while they are free to use, they are also being used by companies to obtain private data for free. HiveMapper will go live in beta this year to give the power back to the people.

CPLE (Carpools Life Economy) wants to make a carpooling app using decentralization to prevent price controls and reduce the cost of information posting.  

• Ride-to-Earn

MOTE by Sweetgum Labs is the world’s first gamified carbon offset project that allows users to directly participate in carbon neutrality through sustainable transportation. Users will receive $OCO tokens when they bike. The project is not yet live and there is not much information on the official website.

BikeRush is a project where users equip themselves with NFT and earn game token $BST by riding outdoors. BikeRush is also based on the concept of healthy living and green environment, and the co-founders are also cycling enthusiasts. The project is still in the basic functional design stage.

• Exercise-to-Earn

There are also a number of projects collectively known as Exercise-to-Earn, which are similar to Move-to-Earn and Bike-to-Earn, but encompass a wider set of activities.

For example, in Wirtual, users can earn $WIRTUAL tokens for running, swimming, cycling, dancing and working out, and earn tokens to purchase or receive discounts in stores. According to the website, there are currently over 40,000 monthly active users.

VICMOVE also integrates walking, running and cycling. The current experience is similar to StepN, where users need to purchase a box from BSC, Ethereum or Polygon, and earn pieces of the box or token $VIM through exercise. 

• Meditate-to-Earn

Why meditate to liberate yourself from worldly attachment when you can meditate to earn crypto, right?

Proof of Meditation has a monthly learning cycle of 21 days, and users will first stake tokens towards this goal. If they miss a meditation, a portion of the token will be locked in the pool. After 21 days, those who have not missed a meditation will receive back their staked tokens and be allocated the token in the pool.

ZenCats will also go live this September with the blockchain’s first meditation and mindfulness DApp using $AWAKE and ZenCat NFTS.

2. Lifestyle

• Eat/Drink-to-Earn

Poppin is the first Eat-to-Earn game on Solana that allows users to collect, battle, and grow fantasy creatures called Poppins. Poppin is scheduled to go live in public beta in September. Users can calculate their total calorie intake and nutritional balance for the day by taking pictures of their food, and the closer they get to the standard, the higher the number of points they get to upgrade their Poppin.

Class falls within the nascent Drink-to-Earn category, a chain of coffee shops that first originated in 2013 in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, and now has 19 chains. $CLASS is the digital basis for its issue, allowing users to use tokens to purchase products and services. $CLASS exists in the community called Velaverse, where users can exchange NFTs and Land, and where users can participate in various online activities.

• Sleep-to-Earn

A large number of people around the world suffer from lack of sleep and poor sleep quality, which affects their ability to study and work during the day. Sleep Future aims to improve the problem by issuing a token, $SLEEPEE based on the quality of sleep of its users, and the token can be used in SleepTown and the Sleepee Store. The project plans to launch a beta version later this year.

3. Creativity

• Write–to-Earn

CrypNote is a Web3 product for permanent storage of notes and collaboration. It is suitable for DAO organizations to collaborate on creating, motivating, sharing, synchronizing, and encouraging efficient value creation and analysis of insights through incentive pools. It also has no gas fee and will get a free Wiki personal domain to create a Web3 home page. But it is currently in beta.

• Rap-to-Earn

Cipher provides creators with the tools to make RAP NFTs, and undiscovered artists can earn revenue by making rap NFTs to sell, with the platform charging a 10% commission. But the audience is still relatively small and sales don’t seem to be high.

• Sing-to-Earn

There are two games in Seoul Stars – an online rhythm game (DJ-to-earn) and a karaoke game (Sing-to-earn). The K-pop online rhythm game scores points by hitting the drop at the right time. While the karaoke game has players singing with a microphone. Scoring is based on the player’s high pitch, rhythm and accuracy. The use of NFT in the game will result in a higher rate of gain, but the game has not yet been launched in a beta version.

Footprint Analytics 

According to the token price of X-to-Earn projects included in Footprint Analytics, StepN is the highest, ahead of Wirtual. Other tokens are still in the early stage and the price is less than $1.

Footprint Analytics – X-to-earn Token Price

Summary

Various X-to-Earn concepts are emerging, but most of them are still in the initial stage, and some aren’t even online yet. 

The question is, are you ready to earn cash doing everything and anything? Will you monetize your life? Is this power to the people, or a Black Mirror episode? 

Only time will tell. 

This piece is contributed by Footprint Analytics community.

The Footprint Community is a place where data and crypto enthusiasts worldwide help each other understand and gain insights about Web3, the metaverse, DeFi, GameFi, or any other area of the fledgling world of blockchain. Here you’ll find active, diverse voices supporting each other and driving the community forward.

Data Source: Footprint Analytics X-to-earn Token Dashboard