Stepn creator giving away over $400,000 in crypto to drive interest in new video game

Find Satoshi Lab, the creator behind the blockchain-powered fitness app Stepn, will give away more than 2 million GMT (roughly $420,000) in an effort to promote its upcoming video game called Gas Hero.

In a competition the company said will last three months, Find Satoshi Lab will award winning contestants GMT tokens for the creation and design of avatars, or “heroes,” which could eventually be featured in Gas Hero.

“Winners will be selected based on the originality of the theme, design quality, and background story,” the company said in a statement.

The web3 game is expected to launch later this year, Find Satoshi Lab said. GMT serves, in part, as a governance token and has a market cap of more than $230 million, according to CoinGecko.

Community building

“As we are fast approaching the launch of Gas Hero, we wanted to get our community involved from the get-go, as they play such an essential part," Find Satoshi Lab chief gaming officer Johnny Lau said in the statement.

Find Satoshi Lab’s sizable giveaway underpins how important building community is for blockchain game developers as most crypto-based games have struggled to gain traction among mainstream gamers. Market volatility and prolonged downturn have made the promotion of new games a more difficult proposition.

Built on the Solana blockchain, one of the fastest and cheapest around, Stepn's Chief Operating Officer Shiti Manghani explained to The Block the company's approach.

 "There can be many Solanas and Aptos, and infrastructure projects, they have a place," she said. "But you have to find consumer applications to build on top of that. Gaming is one in our view, which we are really skilled at."

Crypto bright spots

While web3 gaming has stalled to a certain degree there have been some bright spots, including Stepn making headway with Apple. The fitness app currently has about half a million monthly users, according to Manghani.

Another crypto game, NFL Rivals, recently announced it had surpassed more than 1 million downloads.

Stepn's progress navigating Apple’s strict App Store policies could eventually prove to be a significant milestone. The app secured authorization that allows iPhone users to trade Stepn's in-game NFTs without being forced to exit the app and use an external marketplace.

Apple has historically been either resistant to crypto-based smartphone apps or made launching on the iPhone cost prohibitive due to its policy of taking a 30% of in-app transaction revenues. Stepn also succeeded in negotiating an Apple Pay integration with the iPhone maker.

Gas Hero video game concept art. Source: Find Satoshi Lab