Play, Move, Learn to Earn: How to Monetize Your Passions?
The market of play-to-earn games has already reached billions of dollars of trading volume, and new models keep emerging. These include move-to-earn – the way to monetize your physical activity in the real world, and learn-to-earn – rewards for enhancing your knowledge.
Let’s see why these mechanics are so popular, how they work, and what games allow you to earn crypto.
Play-to-Earn
Making money while playing has been a dream for gamers from all over the world. Earlier, there were very few opportunities to fulfill it — trading in-game items for real money was not streamlined, and only top streamers and team gamers could boast a good income.
This has changed with the advent of play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain games. In 2021, projects in this domain became a driver for growth for the whole crypto market. The reason they became popular is simple: they allow both players and developers to profit.
By 2022, P2E game dApps have over 1.4 millions of connected crypto wallets, and the trading volume of in-game NFTs reached $4.5 billion. Venture investors have put over $4 billion in P2E platforms.
Blockchain games can bring income, but the earnings depend on how much you invest, how well the team manages to build robust tokenomics, and how the platforms’ native token performs in terms of price.
Let’s take a look at 4 different games to picture the diverse landscape of P2E.
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity co-founder Jeff “Jiho” Zirlin says that in previous years, he used to go to conferences and talk about his brainchild until he lost his voice. Today, Axie Infinity is the top play-to-earn project and a name familiar to every crypto enthusiast.
In this game, you can buy monsters issued as NFTs, breed them, and fight with other users’ Axies to earn rewards. The winner receives Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens that they can use for breeding, trade on the in-game marketplace, or sell for fiat. Axie monsters and plots of the virtual land (that can be bought as NFT) are also openly traded at the Axie Infinity marketplace.
How much can you earn with Axie Infinity? There is no straightforward answer to this question as it depends on how much money and time you invest, the current SLP price, and so on. A Filipino man managed to save for a house by playing Axie Infinity, but most active players report earning from a few dozen to a few hundred USD per month.
Decentraland
Decentraland is a virtual reality platform running on Ethereum. Users explore the metaverse, fill it with content, create artifacts, and interact with each other. All these are ways to make profits in native MANA tokens. Objects and land parcels in Decentraland are NFTs that are traded at the local marketplace.
MANA and LAND tokens fuel the game. MANA is used as utility and governance token, while LAND represents the parcels of the metaverse issued as NFTs.
The Decentraland metaverse is split into 39 districts — community areas that vary in size and have their own themes, ranging from Vegas-style gambling to the Crypto Valley business district and Chinese area Dragon City. The game attracts thousands of gamers not only because of P2E mechanics, but thanks to the opportunities to socialize as well.
RadioCaca
RadioCaca is a DAO and a blockchain ecosystem that comprises the USM (United States of Mars) metaverse, NFT marketplace, and a P2E game Metamon World. The latter is based on the BNB Chain and allows users to collect, train, and battle other players with NFT creatures called Metamons.
Metamons. Image source
In every Metamon fight, you earn egg fragments. Once you have a sufficient number of those, you can mint a Metamon egg – an NFT that gets you a new Metamon, diamonds to upgrade the existing monsters, or another item. You can use these to increase the value of your Metamon NFTs or sell them at the RadioCaca marketplace.
One Metamon can battle not more than 20 times a day, so some users play multiple Metamons to earn a bigger number of eggs and make new monsters. The more rare the creature is, the more money you can make once you decide to sell it. The gameplay of Metamon World is fairly simple and engaging, which helped RACA enter the list of the Top 10 play-to-earn crypto tokens on CoinMarketCap.
Metamon World is to become the first game of the RadioCaca’s USM metaverse – a 3D planet where you can own land parcels, build houses, play games, and socialize. This virtual world has a lower barrier for entry compared to other metaverses like Decentraland or The Sandbox – developers wanted it to remain accessible by lowering the land prices.
Gods Unchained
Gods Unchained is a blockchain-based P2E trading cards game created by the developers of Magic: The Gathering. The gameplay implies building a deck of cards and battling them against other players. The cards are minted as NFTs, so players own them just like real playing cards. The non-fungible format makes each card unique, ensuring that every match goes by its own scenario.
Winners of the matches receive GODS, the game’s native crypto token. GODS can be used to buy new NFT cards at the in-game marketplace. You can also swap it at many exchanges to withdraw your earnings.
You can start playing Gods Unchained without any initial investment. However, for a good income, it’s worth spending some money on competitive cards.
Illuvium
Illuvium is an RPG game on Ethereum that is preparing for launch as of May 2022. It is considered as the first blockchain-based AAA game — compared to other P2E solutions where the gameplay is an exciting addition to farming tokens, Illuvium offers a rich and nuanced game experience and top-notch graphics.
In Illuvium, players travel across a diversified landscape to hunt and catch monsters, the so-called Illuvials. Together with these creatures, games are supposed to learn what was the reason for a disaster that destroyed the world as we knew it.
Each monster has their own attributes, from appearance to capabilities. The blending mechanic allows gamers to put two Illuvials into one to upgrade it.
Anyone willing to play Illuvium may sign up for a beta testing and become the first one to try the game.
Move-to-Earn
According to the WHO data, over a quarter of adults (1.4 billion people globally) suffer from the lack of physical activity. The move-to-earn model, or FitnessFi, gamifies walking, running, and other types of exercise. The idea is not fundamentally new — remember Pokémon Go or Wii Sports? However, M2E is different as it provides not only social incentives and entertainment, but financial stimuli as well.
STEPN
STEPN is a Solana-based dApp launched in 2021 allowing you to earn for running and walking. The more you move in real life, the higher is the reward that you get. The game has received funding from Binance and Sequoia Capital India and rapidly attracted over 300,000 daily active users.
To join STEPN, a user needs to register in the dApp and buy NFT sneakers. The barrier to entry is quite high: the cheapest pair costs 11.59 SOL, which is about $500 at the time of writing. You can choose 4 types of sneakers based on the preferred level of activity – Walker, Jogger, Runner, or Trainer. The higher the level, the faster you will have to move, and the more native GST tokens you will earn.
The gameplay is quite simple: as you go for a walk or a run, you launch a tracker and try to keep the speed in the set range. This brings you the GST tokens. You can upgrade your sneakers NFT by running or walking more often – this is the way to increase the rewards, but a turn to a new level has to be paid.
In theory, your initial investment of 11.42 SOL plus 20 GST for upgrading your NFT would pay off in about 50 days. But as the GST token is volatile, it is impossible to precisely calculate the earnings in advance.
SEXN
As the M2E domain moves forward, it has become possible to earn not only while jogging or walking. Inspired by the success of STEPN, a startup called SEXN is designing an app where you can profit from having sex! It works on the same principle as STEPN — users buy an NFT for one of the few sexual practices and then get rewarded with Sex Orgasm Tokens (SOT) for their activity.
The data will be collected from smart watches, fitness trackers, and cell phones – according to the developers, their sensors can distinguish sex from other types of physical activity, so it won’t be possible to fool the app. To earn in SEXN, it doesn’t matter how long the intercourse is or how many orgasms a user has: only the number of times counts!
SEXN is currently under development: the app will be launched in alpha in Q2 2022, the beta will go live in Q3, and the final release is planned for the end of 2022.
Digital Fitness (DEFIT)
DEFIT is a platform that connects users with health and fitness experts in a decentralized way, gamifies the fitness industry with move-to-earn mechanics, and offers loyalty rewards for competing and staying fit and healthy. The app will be launched in 2022.
The platform’s native token DEFIT is operating on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Once the service is live, it will be extremely easy to start using it: all you have to do is sync your Metamask wallet with the app and connect your fitness trackers. Your physical activity will be rewarded with DEFIT tokens.
The platform encourages socialization: you can share your workouts and progress with the community, and creators of the best content will earn tips. Another benefit or using the app is that the DEFIT token holders will receive discounts from partner sport brands and coaching services.
The future DEFIT interface. Image source
DEFIT has plans to launch their NFT collection: it will be created by an artist who has worked with such brands as Dior, Valentino, L’Oréal, Lindt, PSG, and Coca-Cola. Users won’t have to buy this NFT to start using DEFIT, but if they purchase it, the app will bring them more rewards.
Genopets
Genopets is also one of the world’s first move-to-earn games. Built on Solana, it links the physical activity data from your phone with a blockchain economy.
A genopet is your digital spirit animal built upon your personality traits, and it evolves through your daily activity. It’s an NFT that you can breed, raise, develop, and teach to fight.
Players can either buy a genopet at a marketplace or create a new one for free. If you want to maximize the profits from your genopet, you will need to get a habitat for it. The habitat gives you daily income in KI tokens and the opportunity to create crystals – another in-game NFT. The more upgraded your habitat is, the more you earn.
In comparison with STEPN, Genopets doesn’t limit the users who wish to play at no cost — the gameplay is equally exciting in both free and paid versions. Instead of paying, users can farm the experience points, or XPs, by jogging, dancing, and biking. The more XP, the higher the value of your genopet NFT.
Learn-to-Earn
Learn-to-earn platforms offer you to raise money while widening your knowledge. As the biggest players of this segment are centralized exchanges, you will be learning about crypto.
With Binance Academy or Coinmarketcap Earn, you can enrich your knowledge, participate in quizzes, and earn free crypto. The platform has quite many courses, but each of them offers rewards during a limited period of time. A verified Binance account is required to participate.
On Coinbase, you can also watch videos, complete tests, and earn rewards. The platform sends them to you in tokens based on various blockchains. A verified Coinbase account is also required to participate. Note that every test can only be taken once.
Bottom Line
Recently, we at ChangeNOW have asked our Twitter followers about what they think will be the next big “2Earn” thing. Among other options, our subscribers proposed “Create-to-Earn” and even “Sleep-to-Earn” models. While the former is partially implemented in the NFT industry, we believe the crypto projects should seriously examine the latter proposal, too!
On a more serious note, the market offers great opportunities to earn – but in most cases, they won’t offer easy and fast money. For stable and considerable income, investment and constant engagement are needed. X-to-earn models pose a high risk due to possible game tokens’ volatility. Do thorough research before you become involved. And as always, make sure not to invest more than you can afford to lose. We wish you safe experience with play, move, and learn-to-earn mechanics!
