Stepn’s New Solana, Ethereum NFT Marketplace Bucks Anti-Royalties Trend

Amid a recent wave of NFT marketplaces reject royalties for creatorseither through zero or optional royalty models, a surprising new challenger has emerged: MOOAR, from the creators of move-to-earn games Step. It has a unique membership model – and also enforces royalties.

Launching today, supporting MOOAR NFTs embossed on both Ethereum and Solana, and there is more than just Stepn’s own digital sneakers on board. The marketplace also supports other NFTs from both blockchains, and will have its own launch pad to debut new projects from external creators, as voted by GMT token holders.

As mentioned, MOOAR will impose royalties on secondary market sales – typically a 5% to 10% fee taken from the sale price. And unlike many marketplaces that also charge their own fee, MOOAR will instead charge a monthly subscription fee of $29.90 for users to shop.

Shiti Manghani, COO of Stepn developer Find Satoshi Lab, admitted Decrypt that it can be challenging to find adoption for one Web3 platform with a monthly subscription fee, rather than taking a small cut of each NFT sale. However, for serious traders, this monthly expense of nearly $30 may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to typical fees.

“Like most utility applications in Web2, whether it’s Netflix or Amazon Prime, we’ve gone through a membership model,” she said. “It’s not an easy thing to do. It will not be easy to build and grow, and we are fully aware of that. But we are driven by long-term value.”

MOOAR’s launch comes after a series of moves by competing marketplaces to either ignore royalties to creators or let traders decide whether or not to honor them — a “race to the bottom,” as some have called it, as rivals undercut each other while influencing creators’ revenue streams in the process.

The trend started in the Solana room earlier this summer, but quickly accelerated in recent weeks royalty-clouding rivals chipped away on the top platform Magic Eden’s market share. Magical Eden eventually followed, making royalties for creators optional. It’s also happening in the Ethereum space, with LooksRare moved against royalties last week.

MOOAR has been in the works for several months and is the latest move by Find Satoshi to expand the ecosystem around Stepn. The studio previously launched its own decentralized exchange (DEX) called DOOAR in June and it is most used DEX on Solana when it comes to active wallets.

In other words, the Stepn developer hasn’t just whipped up its own marketplace over the past few weeks solely to push back against the anti-royalty trend. But when asked about the team’s stance, Manghani gave an impassioned defense of why many creators consider ongoing royalties both an important source of income and key to the decentralized Web3 ethos.

“As a creator, as a builder and as a founder,” she said, “why would I ever partner, collaborate or work with someone who wouldn’t reward me or my project?”

Manghani cited extractive Web2 platforms such as social media sites built on the back of creators’ output and streaming media platforms that pay small sums to most artists. Seeing NFT marketplaces override creator kit royalties feels like a rejection of Web3 values, in her view.

“We created Web3 to change all that, right? Now, what’s the point if we start centralizing the whole platform again and start exploiting the creators? At an abstract level, it just doesn’t sit right,” Manghani said.

Stepn reportedly increased in popularity last spring tops 3 million monthly active users at its peak when the crypto tokens skyrocketed in value. The mobile app uses a “move-to-earn” model to motivate users to run and exercise, rewarding them with crypto-tokens for doing so. However, they must first purchase and equip NFT-based sneakers to earn rewards.

The game quickly found an eager audience earlier this year, but the hype was short-lived: the GST reward token has lost more than 99% of its valueper data from CoinGecko, while the number of monthly active wallet users connecting to the game has fell 88% since May.

Manghini said Find Satoshi Lab intends to develop a fleet of additional apps built around Stepn’s GMT management token. Like DOOAR before it, she believes MOOAR will be a “powerhouse” to drive additional value to GMT and the Stepn-led ecosystem.