Making Money with StepN

by Chan Walrus | Feb 25, 2024 | Cryptocurrency

When I started out with StepN, I didn’t know what I was doing, and that cost me quite a bit on the outset. In this short guide, I’ll tell you how to make the most out of StepN, because now I’m finally in profit every day, despite the money I spent getting used to the platform. When I first started playing I didn’t understand the statistics, I didn’t know about Gems and how they worked. Basically, I made a lot of stupid purchases and it cost me.

Firstly: Your Base Stats

Once you’ve read this section do NOT immediately go out and buy shoes. I will give you a rundown on the most effective way to buy shoes LATER going into detail on EXACTLY what you need to look out for.

Your base stats have a huge influence on your earning potential. As soon as gems are involved, a small change in numbers makes a massive difference. It’s important to note an Uncommon Shoe can (In some cases and they ARE worth looking out for) have BETTER stats than a rare shoe. So you could pay around a third of the price for a better or equal earner.

The two stats you will want the most are: Efficiency for GST earnings and Comfort is for GMT earnings, (GST is useful for opening lockboxes and GMT for increasing your earning potential buying shoes and mitigating the cost of your shoes HP.) You want to focus on a shoe that has these two stats as your highest stat.

I personally like luck because I am a gambler, however, luck is a cavalcade of disappointment. Don’t be like me. Resilience is absolutely worth it despite the fact that Resilience gems seem to be laughed at by the community.

The short rundown is simple. High Efficiency and Comfort and good Resilience will help you earn a lot, and if you’re a gambler, luck is ok, but really you’d be better off being sensible than relying on it.

Secondly: Your Gems

The ultimate shoe will have a gem for each slot. My main shoes are imperfect because they lack a resilience gem slot. They are one Comfort, one Efficiency and two Luck. So why having one for every gem important? If you’re not rich, like me, you will not be able to afford the end level gems. Because of the way gems are calculated on the marketplace. It’s better to have one gem that is higher level statistically than two gems that are lower level. As no one can reasonably afford the really high level gems, it’s better to cover all your bases and have something that works for everything.

Gem slots are important. You’ll notice little triangles around them on the higher level shoes. These triangles indicate the slot gives a higher percentage boost to the gems put into the slot. The more you have, the better the gem slot is. Because of the way gems work however, it’s important to note your base stats because the calculations for gems will sometimes make it so that the higher base stat on one shoe will give you a better result than a higher quality gem slot. Be careful when picking your slots.

Thirdly: You

Know your limits, and know your capabilities. When I started out, I went with a runner shoe for better earnings. This is because I overestimated my capabilities, and I didn’t factor certain things in that I couldn’t have foreseen. Ultimately after a lot of testing involving running, my favourite shoes are Joggers.

As a runner, you will need three things, a good connection, physical fitness beyond what you’d normally expect, and the right equipment for the job.

Why do you need a good connection?

Because if you don’t have that, the accuracy to keep above the limit required to earn is reduced leading to a lower payout in GST/GMT tokens. You can and most likely will make less money from a runner shoe.

Why do you need physical fitness?

Because otherwise, you will end up collapsing trying to keep your running speed at the crazy speed expected. You won’t be able to keep the running up if you aren’t fit enough causing you to go in and out of the designated speed, costing you token payout.

What the hell do you mean by right equipment?

Zipped pockets will stop your phone slipping out and shattering like your hopes and dreams but most of the time if they’re too close to your body, only one step per two of yours will register. If you wear a big flapping coat to get the jostle in, I’ve noticed very few steps are registered. The only way I’ve found to get accuracy out of running is to have a belt which has a molle pouch at the BACK so you not only look like an idiot when running, but you also get smacked in the ass relentlessly.

From my testing: Joggers are safe, Trainers, I don’t like or trust, Runners seem close to impossible without a regular spanking, and walkers are a joke.

Joggers will cover walking at a decent speed, so as long as you’re not on a zimmer frame you should be fine at a reasonable pace. They are the ideal shoe for me, and a lot of StepN users recommend them too, people who are fitter than I am.

Fourthly: HP and Durability

HP and Durability are the two different repair costs of StepN. As you run, both will decrease at different rates. To repair Durability, you spend GST and to repair HP you use up comfort gems and pay a small GST fee. The higher the level of Comfort Gem (I recommend ONLY using Level 2 Gems) the more HP you repair.

Shoe HP is also important as it is required to sell your shoes, which cannot be sold if the shoes have a HP of lower than 100%. If your shoes have less than 20% they will not provide energy and at 0% you cannot use them to make profit. Look after your shoes and they will look after you.

Having a higher comfort stat or a better rank of shoe will result in a slower % HP reduction so uncommon shoes of equal comfort will last longer than common ones. Having a higher resilience stat will reduce your Durability loss. Comfort will also affect your GMT earnings at level 30.

Fifthly: Energy

Energy is something you need to do well in StepN. It recovers slowly in chunks of 25% of maximum energy throughout the day. You start with 2 Energy. You get more energy the more shoes you collect.

• Common Shoes: +0 Energy Each
• Uncommon Shoes: +1 Energy Each (You will want a lot of these)
• Rare Sneakers: +2 Energy Each (Meh)
• Epic Shoes: +3 Energy
• Legendary Shoes: +4 Energy, I don’t think they really exist.

Having more sneakers will give you more energy as a bonus to a MAXIMUM of 20 Energy, which is more than I can use.

Sneaker Amount:

• 1: + 2 Energy
• 3:+ 4 Energy
• 9 + 9 Energy
• 15 + 12 Energy

You probably won’t need more than 9 if you mainly have uncommon sneakers. So don’t go crazy and burn your money.

Finally: Buying Sneakers and Gems

Here’s my checklist for buying good shoes. You only need ONE set of shoes to run with. So for the other shoes, it doesn’t matter what your stats are. If you’re going full in, I recommend looking for 1 good epic sneaker as your main shoes then buying 8 cheap uncommon shoes. If you’re testing the game out, look for one good uncommon or a good rare shoe. Their stats can be decent, though they mostly won’t come close to an epic. It doesn’t really matter where the previous owner has put their shoe level up bonus stats.

• Shoe has high stats in Comfort and Efficiency. Efficiency is and always is going to be my favourite because it will always be useful.
• Shoe has a gem slot, one for each colour gem. Don’t do a Walrus and ignore resilience.
• Shoe has nice bonuses to gem slots for Comfort and Efficiency if possible.

This small checklist will make it so you get the best bang for your buck. Increase your energy with low priced uncommon shoes.

For your gems: You will be able to get decent luck and resilience gems cheap. Efficiency is going to be really important, and Comfort will be the most expensive gem for it’s level in every case I’ve seen.

An example: I have a level 6 efficiency gem. I love it. I have a level 4 comfort gem, which is great, though GMT earnings aren’t perfect – that said, I earn enough to keep burning out my energy on GMT. I have two level 5 luck gems which would be covered by one level 6 which would have been a little cheaper, and no resilience gem, which would have been supremely cheap and saved me a LOT of GST.

By getting a good shoe that provides all gem slots, you will ensure you have good balance and you’re not weak in any area. Not having all four gem slots will ultimately cost you.

By focusing on Efficiency and Comfort, you will still get good drops for luck on long walks/jogs, and you will have nice HP/Durability reduction which will ultimately mean you spend less on repairs, whilst still having a good chance of success with your drops.

You can, if you’re fit and dedicated increase your daily earning amount of GST, This will cost GMT. It’s valuable up to around 400 if you like me enjoy GST the most.

I spent around 2300 on my shoes and gems. I have currently made around 2500, and I’m in profit, with gems, shoes and more that I can sell. I’ve also got some good results from luck so I’m not disappointed though lock boxes are rather expensive to open, and considering the cheap price of some gems, one might question weather or not they’re worth it. Still, I average out earning about 10-30% more than I lose over your average month.

I hope this has been helpful! If it has, please consider sending me some cryptocurrency!

Coinbase Wallet ID: 0xe1165B33959D3303C5450C7a73b651CD496e0f0f

Motley Fool and Shiba Inu

by Chan Walrus | Jan 8, 2022 | Cryptocurrency

One thing I’ve learned from moderating the Shib Army is that there is a website called the motley fool, or fool.com and to be honest, with some of the things they say, I think it’s definitely the right name for them. Having scanned more than my fair share of articles, I have noticed that they just seem to be either for or against and offer little context or noteworthy information, whilst also showing little knowledge about the cryptocurrencies they talk about.  I read in an article that gives us three reasons to sell Shiba Inu, which comes shortly after their article which gives us three reasons to buy Shiba Inu written in November, and which is sadly just as dumb. Since this article on selling Shiba Inu, fool has put up another post calling out naysayers… In all honesty, at this point I’d take everything with a pinch of salt, as a look back on their hype and panic has little to real direction. I thought though I’d dissect the 3 reasons to sell post as it annoyed me. So what are the facts? As I write this Shiba Inu is currently at a value of £0.000022. This is down from £0.000036 which I first saw it at. £30,704.41 comparatively is the value of Bitcoin. (I will use this later.) The reasons the author gives are as follows:

1: Shiba Inu doesn’t stand out from the crowd. 

This one I find funny because it stood out to me. The development of the Shib ecosystem utilising Leash and Bone tokens is absolutely beautiful, meme worthy and comical but actually with a nice amount of utility, as is the consistent expansion of their work. Shiba Inu is consistently working towards real world utility and their ideas of expanding into the metaverse, combined with their developments are impressive, considering the “meme token” has only been around a year. I saw SHIB and I wanted it and it was one of the first cryptocurrencies I invested in. Shib got me into investing and through my trading of Shib I’ve made a nice amount of money. 

2: Limited Potential for Gains

This is obvious as most things have limits, however, it has a larger scope for gains than both Bitcoin and Etherium at this time at least realistically, (eth being one the author likes.) Eth is valued at £2,352.06 as I write.  The author adds that it is unlikely that Shiba Inu will reach $1 and I think that is true. What I think though is that this is an unrealistic standard, and I would be happy if it hit 1/10 of a penny. The fact that the author sets this unrealistic standard is laughable because why the hell should it hit a dollar? Shib doesn’t ever need to hit values like this to be hugely successful. Let’s look at money for a few minutes. The dollar is estimated at £0.74 GBP, my currency, so let’s do some quick maths. 

• Currently for 74 pence we can buy a whopping 33,636.3636 Shib.
• Currently for 74 pence we can buy a stunning 0.003146178244 Eth.
• Currently for 74 pence we can buy a staggering 0.0000241007249 Bitcoin.

So to hit one dollar or 74p, Shib would have to be 33,636.3636 times it’s current value. Let’s apply this to our writer’s other currency, Eth. Eth times the number Shib would have to grow totals at £79,114,745.37. Bitcoin would have to reach £1,032,784,699.00 I think we can all say without doubt that if we were to smarmily state that pff, Etherium will never reach £79,114,745.37 per coin, snort, guffaw and chortle! Or pfah, Bitcoin will never ascend to £1,032,784,699.00 per coin – most people would say: “well duh.”  Now the odd thing is that this isn’t necessarily true. They could hit these values; it’s just very, very, ridiculously unlikely, and would require a lot of inflation.  The author should be aware when talking about finances that values of crypto do not have to correlate with set goals for a currency to be valuable. If my money in Shiba Inu goes up 10 times to £0.00022, I will make ten times my investment. A hundred becomes a thousand. If it goes up 100 times, I will make a hundred times my investment. That would be ten thousand. Honestly most people are happy at 50% or 60% more than they put in. To me that’s a win as it’s earned me more than my lousy bank. Take that Lloyds!

A few days back before the crash, I doubled my money with Rarible and transferred most of it into other cryptos because I knew the good times wouldn’t last, but you can bet your bottom dollar I’m gonna invest in it again when it takes a hit in the volatile market. Crypto shifts and adapts in value in the volatile markets. I invest in strong currencies like Algorand when they take a hit because I know they’re gonna get right back up after. So I can invest in Algorand then transfer to another currency I trust when Algorand is high and the other takes a hit. Also I get that cool staking advantage on Coinbase, mmmm juicy. But staking annoys me as it interferes with my maths, so my darned spreadsheets have to have another stupid input when I’m doing my maths to ensure I’m making bank and not messing up my numbers.

3: Growth of Rivals

This whole section is dedicated to talking about Blockchain networks, Solana, Etherium and Cardano. I own tokens in each of these, except Eth. All of them are good, however, they are significantly different from Shiba Inu. They are therefore not rivals as whilst their utility is good, they are altogether different and shouldn’t be put in the same boat. It would be like me saying well, Solana might have a team of over 200 developers, but is it meme enough? Does it look Doge? Different use, different utility, ignoring the work Shib is doing in the background to empower itself and ignoring the way it functions as a coin utilising burn strategies to increase its value. Wouldn’t it be more realistic to say: well Shiba Inu has Shibaswap, which is a decentralised exchange. Why not talk about Uniswap, Sushiswap, or 1inch? IDEX v3 launched about a month back and could become a strong contender. These are rivals to Shibaswap.

I have money in 1inch and Aave currently because I have good faith in what the platforms represent. I also have money in Cardano and Solana too. The thing is, if you’re going to talk about rivalry, you need to look at the scope of what it is to be a rival. In Tekken, I play using Lee. My brother slaps me down using that overpowered cheat Marduk, but we are playing the same game. It would not be fair if I used Piccolo from DBZ or Majin Buu to fight either of these. It’s a different game and a different arena. Same with Shib and Solana. For the record, I love both of them, but they shouldn’t be compared like this. Rumours state that Shiba Inu is going to be developing its own blockchain, Shibarium, but until it becomes a solid functioning reality, it’s not really rival competition.

Because of the fact this is written and released during a massive crypto market crash, dragging Shiba Inu down to a mere two thirds of it’s value, this malicious information does lead me to suspect that the fool writer will be taking full advantage of the cheapening Shiba Inu and investing as people panic sell. This behaviour I see as exploitative.  I am very aware of panic selling as I myself did it on IoTeX a while back. I sold what I had bought at 10p for 12p. If I had waited, I could have sold at 16 or 17 and made bank. I still made a profit, but because I panicked, I was kicking myself. Today it’s worth just under 10p, and I bought more at 11. I know it’s going to be going up next year, so I refuse to sell or swap until I make a significant profit. I now have a rule that I won’t sell or swap out of anything until I make 20+ percent profit. 

It is stated bluntly at the end of this article that the author owns Etherium, which is great. The fool also owns Etherium and Bitcoin. They also have a disclosure policy. Whilst this is fantastic news and I am very happy for the author and the fool to own Bitcoin and Etherium, it’s sadly very obvious to me that this article looks like it is written maliciously and with not enough understanding to provide validity to the author’s claims.  I do not know whether or not Shib will reach 1 dollar and I frankly couldn’t care less. The value of the currency is meaningless to me as long as it rises. If I wake up and make 20 or 30 percent. I’ll be happy.  As with all cryptocurrencies, there is hype and there are dangers so do your own research when investing.

I personally like Shib, and I have faith in it. I don’t feel a hint of worry when the value drops and I dutifully invest more. Do not take my word for it, but if you trust me on anything, invest a few quid or dollars in it and forget about it for a few years. Maybe it’ll be a winner, maybe you’ll lose it. If you spent the money on a dinner out instead, that investment won’t get you very far. Shib might not hit a dollar but it might hit enough to make you feel a little happy, pay for a holiday or get that feather boa you always wanted. Whatever you do, buy on a dip, and you’ll probably be happier. If you want to send me some Shiba Inu or other cryptocurrency I have it on my donations page. All donations will be added to my wall of support and you’ll get a thank you on my sci fi series next episode if and when it’s made.