An upcoming move-to-earn game is hoping to get the formula right once and for all.

Stepping Up

Gritti, an upcoming Web3 social fitness app for runners, has announced the closing of its $1.7 million seed funding round. The round was led by Lingfeng Innovation Fund in coordination with Youbi Capital, Bixin Ventures, Orderly Network, Stratified Capital, and CDI. Advisors include Former EA Sports China GM Jared Johnson, Former Vice China CEO Bryant Chou, and Managing Partner at Atmos Ventures Sami Moughrabie.

The scrappy upstart is the latest entrant into the move-to-earn craze, which reached recent heights in April and May with the initial success of STEPN, an archetypal move-to-earn fitness game on Solana. From this perspective, Gritti has big shoes to fill, so to speak.

However, STEPN’s success quickly faded due to several factors, not least of which being concerns about the sustainability of the project’s token mechanics. Like other play-to-earn games before it, STEPN’s GMT and GST tokens lost most of their value almost as quickly as they had gained it, a drop only exacerbated by the overall market meltdown in May.

Gritt styles itself as “a Web3-empowered social fitness app that actively assists users to achieve exercise goals and maintain a healthy lifestyle” that “will define the gold standard of running in web3 by bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds.” The project also boasts “unparalleled access to the professional sports world—from marathon organizers to running influencers and athleticwear manufacturers.”

Gritti’s semi-anonymous team claims to have “deep experience fueling user growth in Web2,” and claims to be “already known for its revolutionary designs in 3D and AR.” Its upcoming “Genesis Sneakers” will launch 2,000 pairs of NFT sneakers in a first-round drop; subsequent drops are said to include “various levels of utilities, privileges, and rewards.”

Gritti is currently in closed beta testing, with a full open beta scheduled for later this year. For more, check out the project’s blog and litepaper.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned SOL and several other cryptocurrencies.