STEPN AMA Sparks Community Panic! Yawn: Price is Not Important, Our Original Intention is Movement

On 5/26, the announcement by Stepn that they would be clearing out users in China in July caused market panic, leading many users and studios to sell off their holdings, resulting in an overall market decline. However, the statements made by the two founders, Yawn and Jerry, during an AMA on the Discord channel yesterday further exacerbated the market crash. What exactly did they say?

STEPN Online Data Overview

According to data from Dune Analytics, since the announcement on 5/26, the amount of deposits and withdrawals on STEPN Solana has been decreasing continuously, and the growth of users has also slowed down gradually, unlike before. It can be seen that the announcement of clearance and the collapse of the coin price have indeed affected user confidence.

Founder Jerry's Heartfelt Words

The impact of such a sudden clearance announcement on user confidence is understandable. For a more detailed process, you can refer to the previous related article. However, seeing the community and the market in such a bleak state, one of the founders, Jerry, also expressed some inner thoughts on Discord. In short, he thanked the community for their continuous support, reflected deeply on past behaviors, and promised to communicate more openly with users in the future.

Disappointment in Community AMA

The day after Jerry shared his inner thoughts, there was an immediate candid exchange with the community. However, the content discussed in yesterday's AMA was even more disappointing for the community.

According to the Twitter account Lin Jiujiu Plays Blockchain's summary of this AMA, it seems that the two founders have significantly different views on the game. Yawn kept making statements that caused panic in the community. Here are some excerpts:

Jerry: We will work hard to maintain good prices
Yawn: The price of GST is not important

Jerry: We will be the only profitable project in a bear market
Yawn: Financial price is not important, our original intention is sports service

Jerry: We will protect everyone's interests.
Yawn: Today's break-even is okay, isn't it nice to earn a cup of coffee by running every day?

From the above excerpts, it can be seen that Jerry has been trying to restore confidence in the community, while Yawn seems unaware that the community cares only about the financial benefits and continuously makes statements that contradict Jerry's goals. Following this AMA, the community lost even more confidence in STEPN, and the market further plummeted.

After this AMA, the former STEPN ambassador, 0xPineapple, decided to step down from his position and expressed his disappointment with the game through an article. The following are some of the reasons why he ultimately decided to leave the game:

1. The slow pace of product development
2. Too many promises, too few fulfillments
3. Some team members' remarks disregarded player feelings, almost never apologized
4. Blaming most mistakes on external factors

His article provides more detailed explanations on the above points, but it is evident that he genuinely hoped for the game's continued development, but ultimately could not continue to support it.

Media Alleges Suspected Large Fund Transfers

吴说获悉，StepN BNB 费用收入地址 6 月 1 日转出 64,732BNB，价值约 1900 万美金，随后经过一次中转地址转入了 FTX；StepN SOL 费用收入地址 6 月 1 日转出 293,810.63SOL，价值约 1200 万美金。按照白皮书，StepN 市场交易费用分配给团队维持运营，不少于 5% 的团队利润回馈给 StepN。

— 吴说区块链 (@wublockchain12) June 2, 2022

In addition to the team's alarming statements, the foreign media "Wu Shuo Blockchain" claimed to have discovered the team's online address without official confirmation, showing significant fund transfers. In about a day, the team's address on the BNB chain saw 70,247 BNB transferred to FTX, worth about $21.28 million. This claim further heightened community concerns.

On the Solana address, 293,810 SOL was transferred out, valued at about $12 million.

Founder Suspends Speaking, Team Changes Communication Channel

6/3 Update: The newly appointed Chief Revenue Officer from venture capital Multicoin spoke in the early hours of the 3rd to appease the community's emotions, including former ambassador 0xPineapple, and stated that the founders would focus on product development and other team members would serve as the main communication channel.

Excerpts from the original post include:

"First of all, I am very, very sorry for the emotional harm caused recently. For various reasons, we have only been able to sleep 3 or 4 hours a day recently, but this should not be an excuse for our mistakes. In fact, if the team focuses on product delivery and updates rather than communicating in a rush due to fatigue, everyone's feelings might be better. We now deeply understand this.

We accept everyone's criticism, whether gentle or sharp. We take all suggestions to heart.

In the future, the product and operations team led by Jerry and Yawn will focus entirely on product delivery. However, we understand that transparent and proper communication with the entire community is still crucial. We will continue to release various company news irregularly, with STEPN's CMO @shitirastogi being the main source of information."

For how to improve the current situation, we have thought a lot. Next, we will share with everyone our solutions to the consumption issues of GST, the inflation issues of shoes and gems, and other issues that concern everyone within the next three months. Specific details will be released by Shiti in due course.

We want to emphasize once again that the pursuit of the overall economic stability of STEPN remains unchanged and will continue to be one of our most important goals.

Our @yawn_rong has made many inappropriate remarks in the past. He should have apologized himself, but the team has decided to temporarily put him in the doghouse and impose a silence for a period of time. So here, if you allow me, on behalf of STEPN, I apologize to everyone."

Anti-Cheat System Activated 6/3 Update

Starting from 4 PM on 6/3, there was a three-hour system update indicating significant upgrades. In the evening at 6 PM, a notice was released on Twitter stating that they would upgrade to an AI-driven anti-cheating model, SMAC.

The main focus of cheating addressed includes:

• False GPS signals - users faking their location
• Motion simulation - simulating exercise through devices
• Multi-casting shoes - using multiple phones to use STEPN

The official believes that these cheaters affect coin and shoe prices, impacting the fairness of the game. SMAC is designed to address these issues. It can even detect shoe forging, buying and selling, and training bots. In the future, the Turing Score TS will be introduced to score user behavior, and if the user's score does not meet the standard, they will not be able to use features like the APP Market and Spending transfers.

The above content summarizes this week's news on STEPN. Whether the team has any brilliant ideas to solve the market crisis remains to be seen. However, a significant app update is expected tomorrow, and the founders have announced an AMA to reveal new information on Saturday. The next few days' news will be crucial for STEPN as to whether it can return to its flourishing state earlier this year.