Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010 )
On November 21, the voting platform BurnGMT developed by the GMT DAO ecosystem fund was officially launched, and users can vote on whether to burn the 600 million GMT tokens repurchased by the team during the period from November 21, 2024 to January 20, 2025 by locking GMT tokens on the Polygon chain. According to the information revealed by Yawn, the co-founder of the GMT team, in the official Townhall event on November 19, the 600 million GMT tokens mainly come from the unlocked shares of early investors and advisors, as well as part of the team allocation. At that time, the participating users will also receive a total of 100 million GMT as additional rewards for participating in the community voting activity.
Against the backdrop of BTC breaking new highs, as the absolute leader in the GameFi track, combined with the previous large-scale injection of liquidity into the GMT token pool by the STEPN and GMT team, and the three rounds of massive airdrops of a total of 200 million GMT tokens to the community, this move will put GMT in a near-full circulation state (except for the annual 2.5% Move2Earn reward share and the foundation's share). This may also highlight the team's ambition in the new bull market - to seek greater development space with better token market performance, while rewarding the community and exploring new growth points for the project.
Odaily Planet Daily will interpret and analyze BurnGMT and the related actions of the team behind it for readers' reference. (Note: The following content is only a project observation and analysis, and does not constitute investment advice.)
BurnGMT.com Website Launched: GameFi Leader Plays Another Big Card
As the leader of the GameFi track in the 2021-2023 cycle, STEPN is well-known, and the launch of the BurnGMT website can be seen as another "big move" after STEPN GO and the GGT token.
According to the information revealed in the official Townhall AMA event on November 19, the sole purpose of the BurnGMT website is to allow community members to vote on whether to burn the GMT tokens repurchased by the official team, and the way to participate is to lock GMT to obtain voting shares. At the same time, the community members who participate in the voting can receive limited edition NFTs and a share of the total 100 million GMT staking rewards corresponding to the voting rights.
It is worth noting that the reward distribution is not only related to the amount of GMT locked by the users, but also the length of the locking period: the more GMT locked and the longer the locking period, the more token rewards. Meanwhile, the less the daily total GMT locking, the more GMT tokens each user can share, and the final rewards will be airdropped after the 60-day locking period. Most importantly, this locking is only for the distribution of voting shares, and the GMT tokens to be burned are all from the 600 million GMT tokens previously repurchased by the official team. Combined with the voting locking mechanism, it can be said that the official team is almost writing "I want to pump the price" on their forehead. After all, considering the 800 million GMT consumed by users in STEPN over the past 2 years, GMT is likely to become the "first Binance Launchpad token to achieve full circulation", which will bring a new wave of market attention and potential buying power to GMT.
GMT Token Economic Model (including planned burn)
Furthermore, after the GMT burn voting activity is completed, which is after January 20, 2025, the GMT DAO will continue to operate, initiating more community governance votes, allowing community members to submit proposals and participate in project development governance. According to the official team, future voting activities may be conducted on a dedicated website, possibly on a quarterly cycle. At that time, the GMT locking corresponding to the community members' voting shares will be soft locking, which can be unlocked at any time.
Recently, STEPN will also launch another highly challenging and potentially breakout community activity - the "Guinness World Record Challenge for the most people and distance run in 1 hour & 24 hours". According to the community AMA information, participants need to open the STEPN or Stepn Go APP and record a 1 mile or longer running or walking activity during the period from 5pm to 6pm Beijing time on November 23 or from 8am on November 23 to 8am on November 24 (Note: no need to wear Sneaker props or consume energy). The theme of this activity is "Run together, make history". If the final number of participants is large enough, it may once again ignite the enthusiasm for participation in the P2E GameFi track, and help STEPN attract a new wave of traffic and market attention.
The participation rewards for this Guinness challenge include exclusive commemorative badges, a limited edition StepN OG sneaker lottery (printed with the Guinness World Record logo, open for lottery on the NFT marketplace MOOAR from November 14 to 22), "record package" rewards, as well as 3 times the GST income and double the GGT income, see the official announcement for details.
It is clear that under the new market environment, the STEPN and GMT team have not stagnated, but are trying to stimulate the community's enthusiasm for participation through the "gamified voting burn" model, in order to boost the confidence of token holders and seek a win-win situation, which is no small ambition.
BTC Hits New Highs, Meme Coins Become the Cycle Mainline, GMT Likely to Become the "Sports Meme Coin"
In early November, after Trump won the new term of the US presidential election, the market finally broke out of the previous months of "bear market volatility" and entered the rampant "upward breakthrough period", with BTC price breaking through from around $73,000 and repeatedly hitting new highs. The "Trump effect" has injected new energy into the cryptocurrency industry. Similarly, after the industry has entered a deep water area, meme coins with relatively low thresholds, higher risk-reward ratios, and more speculative value have become the industry's mainline. On the one hand, this provides a broader market space for the emergence and development of new projects; on the other hand, it also puts forward new requirements for the mature projects and the teams behind them - they must keep iterating and continuously evolving in order to maintain their position in the ever-changing cryptocurrency market.
Considering the above factors, the BurnGMT burn activity launched by the STEPN and GMT team can be seen as thoughtful and closely following the trend -
From the activity mechanism design perspective, the GMT burn activity ends on the day when Trump officially takes office as president (January 20, 2025), which to a certain extent adds the attribute of a "Trump concept token" to the GMT token;
From the website UI design perspective, the pre-heating period website UI includes elements such as Trump's signature red cap symbol and the updated version of Trump's famous campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" - "Make GMT Great Again", which looks quite interesting and has a strong meme attribute.
Official website pre-heating interface
Here is the English translation of the text, with the requested terms retained and not translated:From the perspective of the reward distribution rhythm, the voting reward of up to 100 million GMT will be distributed evenly over 60 days, which means 1.67 million GMT/day. In other words, when the initial number of participants is relatively small, users will receive more rewards, encouraging community users to participate as early as possible. After the voting share reaches the thresholds of 100 million, 500 million, and 900 million locked-in GMT, the team will trigger the destruction of the entire amount allocated to advisors, the team, and investors over the next 10 months (according to the official statement, the specific operation process is to unlock the GMT tokens and send them to a black hole address for destruction, with corresponding on-chain records), thereby relieving the selling pressure on GMT tokens. In any case, users can actively vote to earn rewards, and passively enjoy the token appreciation after the selling pressure is eliminated, which is a "two-birds-with-one-stone" scenario.
In summary, GMT may become the "GameFi & Fitness Product Dual Meme Coin" in the future.
Interpreting the Conspiracy of STEPN and the GMT Team: Using Real Money to Boost the Market Performance of GMT
To delve into the true intentions behind the actions of STEPN and the GMT team, the author believes that the following 3 aspects can be considered:
First, from the perspective of the industry's innovative gameplay, this move can be considered a clear-cut and straightforward "conspiracy" - in a nutshell, the official behind GMT wants to use real money to drive the price of GMT tokens. In the past market, there has always been a tug-of-war between various parties, including 1) the struggle between the on-chain and off-chain markets, i.e., the competition between holders of token lockups, spot tokens, and token futures; 2) the struggle between players and project parties, where one side wants higher returns but cannot unilaterally decide the token supply destruction, while the other side has a stronger decision-making power over token supply destruction but a relatively lower direct token-level return; 3) the struggle between short-term DeFi mining returns and believing in the project and the team behind it, the long-term mindset - the former tends to operate in a "earn and run" or "sell and profit forever" style, while the latter is "fishing for big fish" and exchanging time for space. The gameplay of directly repurchasing tokens and delegating decision-making power to community users perfectly resolves the "prisoner's dilemma" in various struggles - the project party uses real money to reduce token supply and boost token prices, and the community only needs to choose "Yes/No".
Secondly, from the perspective of the project's industry status, as the undisputed "GameFi King" in the late bull market of 2022, the market performance of STEPN and GMT has been evident, and the project party's operational capabilities have also been fully validated by the market. The past situation of "a pair of high-level prop shoes being in high demand" is still exciting to think about, and it can be said that STEPN has already been the top player in the Mass Adoption wave that many industry insiders have been calling for. Now, under the inspiration of the unprecedented bull market, STEPN and the GMT team are making their moves openly, clearly not limited to the limited chips in the hands of retail investors, but wanting to "expand the plate" further, allowing the imagination space and "market dream rate" of the story to be further lifted. After all, STEPN's products have nearly 8 million real-user registrations, and the nearly 30 global offline gatherings held every month since 2022 are the "natural fans" of GMT. A project with such a solid foundation is not common, not only in the current market where meme coin projects are everywhere, but also in the past few market cycles. The opportunity to get on board is not to be missed. The 600 million GMT tokens to be destroyed and the 100 million GMT rewards are the best proof.
Finally, from the perspective of the project's past return performance, the team behind STEPN and GMT can be called "professional money givers" - previously, STEPN has repeatedly rewarded community users, not only by giving away running shoe props for free at the beginning of the project, but also by allowing users to earn GMT tokens by consuming energy in the early stage of the product, which has cost them tens of millions of GMT tokens. The annual GMT token airdrops have also been a wealth creation feast - according to reports, STEPN has already airdropped nearly $30 million worth of GMT this year. Regardless of bull or bear market, community users have received real and direct economic returns, and many people have even fallen in love with running and have been sticking to it until now (the author has many such friends around). In addition, thanks to the impressive past returns, STEPN and the GMT team have also gathered a large number of community users with a strong "blockchain co-construction, co-governance, and co-sharing spirit", which has laid a good foundation for the project's development.
Staking Rewards Non-Fungible Token Interface
From a market perspective, compared to other teams that "issue tokens and then slack off or even disappear", the launch of the BurnGMT website by STEPN and the GMT team to destroy part of the GMT token supply is doing something "thankless", but the more they do this, the more it highlights their unwavering determination, decisive operations, and confidence in "not caring about short-term gains and losses, but focusing on the long-term development of the project".
BurnGMT Action Guide: How Can GMT Holders Maximize Their Returns?
Adhering to the principle of "decentralized decision-making", whether the GMT destruction voting campaign can ultimately reduce the total GMT supply and increase the GMT token price depends on the participation of community users. If you want to see GMT's market price performance reach a new level while also obtaining the corresponding rewards for this voting campaign, users can follow the steps below:
Open the https://burngmt.com/ website and connect your wallet;
Lock up your GMT holdings to obtain voting shares;
Vote to support the official destruction of the repurchased GMT tokens.
Lock up GMT to vote. The more you lock up, the more GMT will be destroyed.
GMT locked-in reaches 100 million: Destroy the GMT belonging to the advisors.
GMT locked-in increases by 500 million (total locked-in reaches 600 million): Destroy the GMT belonging to the team.
GMT locked-in increases by 300 million GMT (total locked-in reaches 900 million): Destroy all the repurchased GMT tokens, totaling 600 million.
Official Website Locking Progress Display Interface
After voting, users will receive a limited-edition hat Non-Fungible Token (Make GMT Great Again, MGGA), similar to the red hat on the official website interface. On the one hand, this Non-Fungible Token will serve as a memento of participation in the voting; on the other hand, it also records the GMT locked-in amount and the corresponding reward amount. It is reiterated: the earlier you participate in the lockup, the more of the 100 million GMT rewards the official has prepared will be allocated to you, i.e., the higher the return. At the same time, this campaign also provides profit opportunities for spot players and futures players, with the former able to enjoy the upside gains and the latter able to make profits through market speculation.
In addition, after the further reduction in GMT token supply and the further increase in price, the imagination space of the GMT token ecosystem will also be further expanded: in terms of products, STEPN, STEPN GO, and other GameFi products are still running stably; the multi-chain Non-Fungible Token market MOOAR also provides convenience for secondary market trading; cross-chain DEX DOOAR, mini-games MORCHI, strategy game GAS HERO, ecosystem wallet FSL ID, and other multi-domain products provide ample choices for users. Furthermore, according to official information, they will launch 3 new products by 2025, which are worth looking forward to. In addition, the slogan "BurnGMT" itself is highly Meme-like, and combined with the health and fitness sector, which is also gradually attracting more attention in the crypto industry, GMT can also be expanded horizontally to "Health Meme", "Fitness Meme", and even the recently popular "Desci Track Meme Coin" and other directions.
And in terms of breaking out of the circle, the team behind GMT has also been working hard: STEPN products not only have strong user appeal in Japan, but the related competition teams have also won the "fourth place in the team" in the Japan National Power Marathon; sponsoring the Taipei Marathon, the Lindesay brothers' crossing of the Great Wall of China, and the 46-day cross-continental journey of veteran Nels across the United States have also sparked widespread discussion, with high topicality. They have also reached relevant cooperation with world-class brands, famous stars and IPs such as Asic, Adidas, Casio, Ghost in the Shell, Steve Aoki, and Snoop Dogg, which has also provided a good foundation for the volume of STEPN and GMT.
Therefore, compared to the market capitalization of $2.3 billion at its peak, the current $490 million size of GMT is undoubtedly undervalued by the market, with a certain asymmetric opportunity.
Conclusion: The only constant is change, and crypto projects are no exception
With BTC price breaking through $93,000 again recently, there is no doubt that the crypto bull market is still ongoing, and for the various players in this highly volatile market, they not only need to grasp the short-term risk arbitrage opportunities, but also need to recognize the value of long-term ism from the bottom of their hearts, only in this way can they ensure that they do not leave the table and will not "lose everything with one wrong move".
In this regard, we can see that the ambition of STEPN and its team behind the launch of the BurnGMT destruction plan is not limited to the short-term fluctuations in coin prices, but to explore a development path of their own through innovative gameplay, and to explore a broader future together with countless community members in the Meme cycle. On the eve of Trump's return to power, the trinity of "GameFi+Meme coin+ecosystem development" of GMT is expected to usher in a new round of explosion.
