Experience and prospect of a pure user of StepN

written in front

I am not a StepN "player", but a sincere and pure StepN user. The meaning of sincerity and purity here does not mean that I can boldly say that even if the value of all assets in my App is zero, I will accept it without any disturbance. What I mean is that I will not be hasty, panicked and swayed by the temporary abnormal data in the market, nor will I introduce and recommend projects with the mentality of "multilevel marketing" to consolidate the "profit" field of my early users.

The main content of this article is based on the ecological value of Web3 and the quantification and pricing of data assets, to discuss and extend the current charm of StepN and the huge potential in the future (even if its Business data&Funding round is enough to prove that it is already "valuable") , to achieve the ultimate Web3 Dapp ecological closed loop .

The Revolutionary Significance and Value of Web3 Ecology

The paradigm of Web2 is user creation, platform ownership, platform control, and platform distribution (value);

The paradigm of Web3 is user creation, user ownership, user control, and protocol distribution (value).

From the above summary, it can be intuitively found that compared with Web2, the biggest change realized by web3 is the transfer of ownership : from the platform to the user . Every day, users generate massive amounts of data on the Internet: such as written articles, registered accounts, uploaded self-portraits, etc., which are all value created by users - "digital assets". But unfortunately, under the traditional Web2 paradigm, the ownership of these "assets" does not belong to users, but is firmly controlled by platforms and giants, and so are the benefits generated therefrom. Although usually the platform will adopt some high incentive methods (incentive measures BY WEIFANG) to attract new users before it matures (stimulate incremental economy BY WEIFANG), but when it grows into a giant, it will not only reduce the initial new user rewards, but even It will also increase the entry cost of the service provider to obtain a higher ROI. Such business logic and style of play have long been commonplace in Web2, such as various food delivery platforms, online shopping platforms, taxi-hailing software, etc. that we are familiar with. But at this time, users at both ends of B and C have become dependent on it. Even when the revenue decreases and the cost increases sharply, everyone can only choose to compromise and accept except for a few complaints.

The emergence of Web3 has broken this situation.

In the Web3 ecosystem based on blockchain technology, all data generated by user behaviors are owned by the user , and can be sold at a price with the help of an agreement (the agreement is executed by code and not controlled by a third-party platform). Users enjoy Most of the proceeds from the content you create yourself. It is not difficult to understand and deduce theoretically that when a certain platform (community) returns the user's data "assets" to the user in the form of remuneration through an agreement (code), the user will have a stronger motivation to jointly build a more prosperous and active community. platform, this will be a process of positive feedback.

Under such a Web3 paradigm and vision, although the creation method and subject of data value will not change much, the attribution and distribution method of its ownership will undergo earth-shaking innovations . However, there is still a long way to go to realize the ultimate Web3 ecology in terms of underlying software and hardware technical support, user education, and even centralized government policy support, but the value of this revolution is already amazing.

Even under the Web3 paradigm, the original "digital asset" value distribution method can be reshuffled, but I can't help but think about a pre-existing question, what kind of digital assets are valuable, or in other words, what kind of Is the data generated by user behavior valuable and worthy of distribution?

Is user behavior data valuable?

Even though I have just stepped into the field of Web3 and blockchain for a month, I already know that there are too many scam projects in this circle that are eyeing users. Among them are some fraudulent projects, which attract users under the slogan that the platform and the community are owned by users, and call on users to actively contribute (time, money) in the community to rebate them. In fact, all interactions of users within the platform ecology, although "data" is created through Internet behavior, are almost worthless. To say the least, after breaking away from absolute digitization, the value consensus at the physical level is almost zero. Therefore, when I browse the Dapp on the upper layer of the blockchain, I often think about what kind of data behavior will happen to the users participating in this Dapp, whether such behavior has real value , and whether the formation of this kind of value consensus is sustainable. Whether the distribution of remuneration after the value is generated is reasonable, etc., is one of the dimensions to judge whether this is a pure Dapp and whether it will help realize the ultimate vision of Web3.

The Magic of StepN

After that, I came into contact with StepN, a Move to Earn App that is rapidly going out of the circle. Frankly speaking, when I first chose to use StepN, I was largely influenced by the friends around me and attracted by its high return rate. But the reason why I finally became a pure and sincere user is because I was gradually attracted by its "magic power" in the process of using StepN, and I believed that it had a stable and long-term life cycle.

In order to fully popularize Web3 in the future, in addition to software and hardware technical support and market policy support, there is another very important step: user education . That is to say, let more Web3 and blockchain novice know, understand, and be familiar with Web3. At present, StepN, which is out of the circle at an amazing speed, is broadcasting in the market to provide user education for the market. Although the interaction of StepN is not much different from that of Web2 products, the interactive behaviors of users such as moving, upgrading, and mint are all off-chain behaviors; but it has already integrated the blockchain Defi Services are provided to users . Even though StepN does not directly provide users with blockchain science popularization through courses and lectures, the interaction it provides can indirectly guide users to learn and understand. Learning by learning is not as good as learning by doing, but learning by doing is even worse than learning by learning. In short, StepN is a door that welcomes and embraces novices and people outside the circle.

However, if it is only the amazing speed of out-of-circle and user growth rate itself, it is not enough to make me a "sincere and pure" user, because any Ponzi game or project with funds is accompanied by high growth and high expansion in the early stage. Although, from the current user profit model of StepN, there are many doubts claiming that this is a Ponzi project, but Ponzi is not completely derogatory in nature. We can think about whether the payment and income systems of pension insurance in various countries are also Ponzi models. ? In fact, what makes me recognize the amazingness of StepN from the bottom of my heart is its current contribution to raising public health awareness, as well as its future breakthroughs in environmental governance, sustainable development, and carbon neutrality.

I won’t repeat the importance of moving, running and other sports on the promotion of human health itself and the improvement of the sub-health state of the human body. A topic I would like to discuss more is the formation of people's habits and the promotion of ideological sublimation . Through the reward mechanism of StepN, it is obvious that a large number of users start exercising day after day due to the attraction of rewards and rewards; and because of the setting of StepN's daily energy upper limit and recovery mechanism, it limits the daily exercise of each user Time and at the same time "guarantee" that users will persevere in cultivating and maintaining exercise habits. This is easy to understand. When a certain behavior of people is linked to money and interests in the form of positive feedback, people usually have a strong motivation to persist. Day after day, when the rate of return of StepN in the future may not be as good as it is now, there is reason to believe that the proportion of lost users will be much lower than that of traditional p2e games. Because good habits will sublimate personal ideas, when everyone insists on a fixed daily exercise time, the daily schedule will become more regular, and the body will gradually reveal healthier signals. Therefore, the subsequent positive feedback is promoted and promoted by health itself and thought itself, rather than absolute benefits.

Temporary earnings may promote the secretion of dopamine in the human body, allowing people to experience the pleasure and stimulation of soaring adrenaline; however, the accumulated health, continuous improvement of the body, and a comfortable and happy mood are the most valuable gains for users, and The source of motivation for continuous movement. Dopamine represents the pre-acquisition hunger, but endorphins represent the post-acquisition satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Gains always make people hungry, but the harvested healthy body, healthy mind, and healthy lifestyle are satisfying achievements and surprises. Therefore, one of the highlights of StepN is the long-term contribution to people's health, habits and ideological achievements.

StepN's Future Web3 Ecological Outlook

Also, I was particularly excited when I read the "Carbon offsetting" part of the StepN white paper. On the one hand, I am infected by the structure of the project party. On the other hand, more importantly, I am looking forward to StepN's future actions in the carbon neutral market. This does not only refer to the income donation mentioned in the white paper, but more importantly, the collection of The ecological value generated by the user's individual behavior and data, and through the international carbon emission index market, the ecological value is reasonably realized, and finally returned to the user reasonably and fairly through the agreement. Such a complete closed loop will undoubtedly become a model for Web3 Dapp.

Image source: StepN white paper

The ecological value and significance of carbon neutrality will not be repeated here. A simple search for "greenhouse gas and the harm of the greenhouse effect" can be seen at a glance; at the same time, the commercial value of carbon emission indicators and low-carbon behavior can be seen from a set of data: In 2020, the global carbon market transaction scale will reach 229 billion euros . In addition, from July 16, 2021, when China officially launched carbon emission trading to the end of 2021, the domestic carbon market transaction volume in China will reach nearly 8 billion. At the same time, the carbon-neutral missions committed by developed countries and major powers in the world will continue until at least the middle of the 21st century. Therefore, there is still a lot of room for the development of the global carbon market in the future.

There are already many branches in the carbon market. Taking China as an example, in addition to the quota carbon market for participants to trade carbon emission quotas, there is also an inclusive carbon market to quantify the value of the public's low-carbon behavior and conduct commercial (financial) analysis on it. Incentives are summarized as follows:

• Carbon quota market:

• Participants: large industrial enterprises

• Transaction object (value quantification object): the carbon emission quota allocated by the government to enterprises with carbon emission needs, and the quota is the certificate and carrier of carbon emission of enterprises.

• Mode of operation: Enterprises with a balance of carbon emission allowances can transfer their allowances to other enterprises through transactions, and enterprises with insufficient allowances can purchase allowances to fulfill their payment obligations.

• Carbon market for emission reductions:

• Participants: Green and low-carbon project parties and industrial enterprises

• Transaction object (value quantification object): "carbon offset" that can be used to offset carbon emissions.

• Mode of operation: In addition to purchasing carbon emission credits to add emissions to the carbon emissions of regulated companies, you can also purchase "carbon offsets" formed by non-controlled companies using clean energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reduce emissions to meet Enterprise production needs.

• Inclusive carbon market (core: future stepN-related):

• Participants: general public, small and micro enterprises and households

• Transaction object (value quantification object): low-carbon behavior

• Mode of operation: The low-carbon rights and interests of residents are reflected by the carbon reduction of residents, the public or small organizations, and certain value incentives are given to residents who occupy less resources or contribute to the construction of low-carbon cities.

On the basis of the above, let's look back at the ongoing user behavior in the StepN community, and look at Stepn's contribution to the entire "carbon neutral" cause.

In the past, the solutions for the "last 1km" were ofo and mobike, and the solution for the "last 2Km" may still be taxis. The former is very environmentally friendly, but it is not harmless. Energy saving and environmental protection are accompanied by huge labor maintenance costs, and problems such as illegal parking of bicycles and other public resources are new social problems; It is said that it is not economical and environmentally friendly, let alone advocated. But after the appearance of StepN, some colleagues and friends around me have chosen Moving by body to solve the problem of "last X KM". Therefore, the exit and rapid expansion of StepN are of great value and significance to the ecological governance and sustainable development of the entire society . At this point, let us discuss in the second part of this article whether all user behaviors that generate data can generate value. The value of each user's data in StepN is self-evident. Ecology is valuable.

Since it is valuable, the next step is to quantify it, and finally to realize it.

The value generated by a single user through low-carbon behavior is indeed negligible, but when hundreds of thousands, millions, or even more users in the future strive to choose low-carbon travel to contribute to the ecology, when such a trend becomes a collective behavior, It is necessary to quantify its value. Therefore , if StepN can unite with a centralized organization to audit, evaluate and quantify the ecological value created by each user through Moving, and price it, and finally realize it through a subdivided carbon market, the business model of the entire platform, Product positioning will change. At the same time, the most important thing is that if StepN implements a recognized agreement through Token governance in the future, most of the income realized through "collective low-carbon behavior" will be distributed and returned to users in accordance with the agreement, or a coverter mechanism will be set up to use the income for return Purchase GMT and GST to consolidate the StepN ecology, which will form a complete ecological closed loop. At the same time, such a set of models will also become a model of the Web3 ecology, achieving real user behavior to create data and at the same time assign value by agreement, and this "value" is not limited to the consensus of "insiders" The physical world makes close connections.

Assuming that the above-mentioned closed loop can run through, another question arises in my mind. When the user's moving behavior has a new value pricing dimension, how to ensure that the user's moving behavior is really contributing to "low carbon"? For example, runner A used to take a taxi for the last 2Km after the subway, but now he is willing to get up 15 minutes earlier and walk to cover the last 2km through stepn. Such low-carbon behavior is worth pricing; runner B used to have the habit of running for 30 minutes a day, Now while running, the mobile phone will open the stepn application. For runner B, it is obvious that its behavior is not purely "low-carbon behavior", and it is not worth the price. So how to distinguish whether a user's moving is a "low-carbon behavior"? One of the solutions is for users to freely choose their own behavior patterns (such as: low-carbon behavior or daily exercise) before starting moving, but obviously this cannot meet expectations, because everyone has an incentive to choose "low-carbon behavior" to obtain additional rewards . Therefore, this is a pre-issue of closed-loop implementation, but perhaps the project party can ask users to submit and review their travel routes and time as one of the solutions, because generally speaking, users' travel needs are fixed time and fixed route . Of course, this review work may be centralized, but as discussed above, as long as the ownership and distribution of value are based on decentralization, it is a model of Web3.