STEPN removes GPS in China amid regulatory concerns – price drops 40%

STEPN, the revolutionary move-to-earn project, has announced they will be forced to stop providing GPS services to users within mainland China on July 15, 2022. The in-game token GST has plummeted 40% on the news

“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.”

The token, which trades on both Binance Smart Chain and Solana, peaked at $7 on May 3 but has now dropped to just $1.60, recording a 77% decline since the all-time high.

The native sneaker NFTs required to earn GST in-game are also down 30% in the past 24 hours and available for just 9 SOL. It appears that restrictions within mainland China are, yet again, proving to be a major hurdle for innovation in the crypto space.

Interestingly, STEPN claims to have not “engaged in any business in mainland China since its establishment.” Therefore, it appears that the decision to remove GPS services within China has been made to stop users from circumventing systems to access the application. To comply with regulations, STEPN added,

“STEPN has always attached great importance to compliance obligations and always strictly abides by the relevant requirements of local regulatory agencies. We also remind users to beware of scams.”

STEPN uses several tokens in-game, SOL, BNB, GST, and GMT. NFTs are purchasable with either SOL or BNB, with the game operating on both chains simultaneously. GST is a utility token and is used to reward users for moving as well as upgrading NFTs to optimize the experience.

The GMT token is the governance token of the ecosystem and is also down 37% on the day and 78% from all-time highs. The overall market cap of GMT has now dropped below $400 million and dropped to 84th on the list of top cryptocurrencies.