The Step App cryptoproject, which worked on the popular move-to-earn model, officially announced the complete shutdown of its business four years after its launch. The developers have given users a deadline of August 21, 2026, to withdraw blocked FITFI tokens from staking through the application interface, close open positions on exchanges and permanently leave the ecosystem. After this date, all project services will cease to function, and the funds remaining in the staking may become permanently unavailable. The project team called this decision "difficult", but did not disclose the specific reasons that prompted their closure.

The market's reaction was immediate: against the background of negative news, the native token of the FITFI platform collapsed by about 88% in one day. Since the initial launch of the project, its value has collapsed by 99.99%, and the daily trading volume has dropped to a critical $26,300, which is 37% lower than the previous day. Initially, the Step App operated on the Avalanche blockchain, tracking users' physical activity (walking, running, sprinting) via GPS and smartphone sensors. For this, KCAL and FITFI tokens were credited, although for real earnings it was necessary to buy and upgrade NFT sneakers (SNEAK). At its peak, the ecosystem included its own Step Network, Step Bridge, Step Wallet, Step Ex exchange and Step Launch launchpad, and the number of downloads exceeded 1 million.

The closure of the Step App vividly illustrates the deep crisis of the move-to-earn sector. Back in April, the Bybit exchange excluded the FITFI/USDT trading pair due to catastrophically low liquidity. The model, which experienced a boom in popularity in the spring of 2022, could not withstand the pressure of the bear market: the influx of new users dried up. The STEPN niche leader was forced to radically reduce the amount of rewards, the Genopets and Walken projects completely stopped activity, and Sweatcoin abandoned crypto payments in favor of gift cards. This trend fits in with the general wave of closures in the crypto industry over the past month, which has affected even large and long-lived exchanges such as BitMart and BitMEX, which have been operating on the market for 9 and 11 years, respectively.

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The material has been prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice or recommendation.