Genopets – M2E Before It Became Mainstream

In this article we continue our Move-t0-Earn (M2e) series, and today we’re looking at Genopets. 

What is the first project that comes to your mind when you think of M2E? STEPN? Did you know that the M2E concept was actually started by Genopets back in 2021? But while STEPN has already made a name for itself in this space, Genopets has yet to take off.

How does it work?

Genopets is the first free NFT game that allows you to earn and enjoy an active lifestyle. Built on Solana, Genopets combines your daily real-life activities with the Play-to-Earn blockchain economy. This model allows you to monetize your real-world activities by making them part of your gameplay.

The key game element is the Genopet – a 3D NFT animal that evolves, can be upgraded and customized as you level up in the game. Your Genopet NFT is free and is hatched as an infant. Over time, it will increase in value as you invest time and effort to augment its type, battle performance, and aesthetics. 

You can also buy a mature Genopet on the secondary marketplace. 

Apart from Genopets, there are Refined Crystals. Crystals come in a variety of forms, and can affect the appearance of a Genopet – adding skills and improving and creating Habitats. Crystals can be crafted using $GENE and $KI in this Habitat Lab.

Habitats are where Genopets live and evolve. A Habitat is a Genopet’s living environment and opens up the opportunity to earn $KI tokens for completing quests in the game. Habitats also generate crystals. Habitats are divided into 3 levels (the higher the level, the more crystals they produce). One account can have a maximum of 3 active lands. You can buy Habitat on the marketplace or create one with $GENE, $KI and crystals.

Tokenomics

There are two tokens inside the game: $GENE and $KI.

$GENE is a governance token. $GENE holders can vote to change in-game features, get VIP access to new content, and earn through staking.

$KI is a key in-game token that can be obtained by land owners. Users can use $KI to develop your genopet, alchemize crystals, create new habitats, and fight other players.

Should I invest in Genopets?

Let’s look over the pros of the project:

• Strong investors – Konvoy Ventures, Pantera Capital, Alameda Research, Solana Capital, Animoca Brands, and others.
• Creative idea – the developers figured out how to use M2E without getting hung up on sports. Genopets’ concept is more complex and interesting than STEPN’s.
• Product in Beta – access to the beta app is granted to Genopet or Habitat owners, $GENE stackers, and DNA-followers in Discord. Add to that a tradable token.

However, there are some issues like the leak of deadlines in the roadmap and a strong competition in the M2E space. 

Given the promising premise, Genopets deserves the hype surrounding it. However, beyond the basic ideas, any technical bugs or speed issues could potentially affect gameplay and distract users from the game. Hopefully, using Solana as a base will solve these problems.

By introducing a ‘move and earn’ mechanism, Genopets provides a parallel use-case whereby users can level up and evolve with their virtual pets in the real world. Overall, Genopets is an interesting way to get in shape and earn money at the same time.

NFA, and DYOR 🙂