I Tried sMiles For A Month: Here's My Verdict

A lifestyle app that pays out crypto for logging your step activity!? What does that sound like? Anyone? Bueller?

Ah yes, STEPN. It sounds a bit like STEPN. In case you’ve scrubbed it from your memory, STEPN is the Solana-based (SOL-USD) lifestyle app that pays out crypto rewards in the app’s native coin, Green Satoshi Token (GST-USD). The app experienced a bit of a mania in the late spring/early summer months. The tokens and NFTs associated with the app exploded in value (goosing exercise returns) but have since collapsed. I’ve covered STEPN numerous times in the last few months:

• STEPN: A Potential Play-To-Earn Winner

• STEPN: I Finally Got Into The App - It’s a Doozy

• The Collapse of the Digital Sneaker

• Post-China Ban, STEPN Appears to Be Struggling

As you can see, the app was clearly of interest to me. It combines two things that I enjoy; mild exercise and sh!tcoins; a match made in Heaven. Truth be told, I wanted STEPN to be a success. I love the idea of rewarding healthful decision making and I thought there had to be some sort of ad-based model where a similar platform could work. Then I discovered sMiles. Like STEPN, sMiles rewards exercise with crypto. However, unlike STEPN, sMiles requires no upfront cost (NFT purchase) and it pays out Bitcoin. No sh!tcoins. Straight sats, homie.

The App Is Simple and Straightforward

When you open sMiles, you have to make sure the health tracking app on whatever device you’re using is turned on. The health tracker is feeding your step data to sMiles. So for instance, the Health app on my iPhone and the steps on my sMiles account read the same number. If you want to be rewarded for the steps, you need to make sure you’re checking in everyday at least once.

While tracking your steps is the most frictionless way to use sMiles, there are a variety of games that the user can also play if they want to boost their sat rewards. There’s a spin the wheel game called “Satoshi’s Wheel” that almost always lands on 2 sats; though I’ve occasionally had it pay 5.

There is also a chess game that will pay out sats for completed games, win or lose. While I do enjoy playing the chess game, it is a bit glitchy and seems to always freeze when I get the upper hand on the board. That said, the chess puzzles game is great and pays out a sat for each puzzle completion. If you’re not completely horrible at chess, this is a pretty good way to get small sat rewards pretty easily while also challenging your brain. There’s another game called “Fort Nakamoto” that I have yet to really try because it seems to lack direction/intuition.

sMiles is Essentially A Glorified Bitcoin Faucet

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a solid Bitcoin faucet. What is a faucet exactly? It’s typically a website that pays out small amounts of Bitcoin (typically 5-10 sats) for completing small tasks and viewing advertisements. You can read more about faucets here if you want to know more. If you’re looking for a faucet with high payouts, sMiles isn’t it. But if you’re looking for a faucet that requires very little engagement, no fuss, and you already track your steps anyway, sMiles is pretty cool.

Risks?

The obvious risk here is privacy. I’m not someone who likes to give apps access to other applications or data from my devices. And in the case of a step tracking app, you don’t really have a choice. sMiles has to be able to access the data from the health trackers on your phone. And the health trackers on your phone need geo services turned on. If that’s a problem for you (no judgement, I completely get it), this probably isn’t the best way for you to get non-KYC Bitcoin. This is from the company’s privacy policy:

Please note that, with your consent, we will collect information about your location and physical movements in order for the sMiles App to function properly and monitor and verify forms of eligible movement.  You may turn location monitoring on and off from time to time using the settings of your operating system of your mobile device but, if you disable this functionality, we will not be able to collect information relating to your step-count and GPS/Cell-ID location which will prevent tracking of and/or earning rewards for your movement.

We work with third parties from time to time (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers and credit reference agencies) who may provide to us information about you. This may include your purchase history from business partners who supply you with rewards made available via the sMiles App.

No real surprises in my opinion. When you signup you provide an email address and a name. I used a burner email and my college alter ego because I’m weird. But you don’t need to provide an address or any banking/KYC information. The other risk is the reward is Bitcoin. Bitcoin fluctuates in price and the reward you’re paid can potentially decline in US dollar value.

How does payout compare to STEPN?

Now we get to real meat and potatoes of the post. How much can you earn in Bitcoin? Sorry it’s not much. After using the app for exactly one month, I have about 15 cents in my Muun wallet. While the payout varied day to day, presumably because of Bitcoin’s price fluctuations, over the course of the whole month it generally took 1,000 steps to get 1 sat.

The other thing that I think might be a fairly big sticking point for many is most of my rewards game from playing the games and being served an ad while doing so. I actually earned far more sats just by playing the Chess puzzle game for a few minutes each day. How does this compare to STEPN? I never took the plunge and bought a sneaker NFT, but if we use Dan Roberts’ 2 month journey with STEPN, we can draw some comparisons:

To date, through eight runs on Stepn of 1.6 to 3.6 miles each, I've earned 31 GST total, currently worth... $2.17.

Can you earn more with STEPN over time? Possibly. But GST has been cut in half again since Dan’s mid-July article. His 31 GST are now worth less than $1. That’s still higher than my sMiles rewards, but there’s a big caveat. There was a significant upfront cost for Dan to earn his 31 GST:

And I haven't even mentioned the catch. To start using Stepn, you have to buy a sneaker NFT, parked on Solana and priced in SOL. When I bought mine toward the end of April, SOL was flying high, close to $100, so I shudder to share what I spent on my sneaker: more than $400. Market research!

Right now, SOL is worth about $32. Using basic math, we can assume Dan spent over 4 SOL on his sneaker NFT. So not only is the value of that sneaker NFT collateral now down almost 70% measured in the dollar conversion rate of SOL, but the NFT itself is probably valued under 4 SOL as well as floor prices of the NFTs are now below the mint prices of 1.3 SOL.

As a business, STEPN is really more of a subscription model than an ad-based model. The problem on the user end is the subscription is so much bigger than the reward. Users have the up-front cost of the NFT-access structure. They pay to buy the NFT sneaker. Then they pay to maintain the sneaker NFT which suffers from ROI decay the more it’s used. Unless STEPN users are really committed and learn the gamification of the STEPN app, it’s almost a certainty they’re going to come out well behind on the initial investment. That’s not the case for sMiles.

Payout

Because sMiles uses integration with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, the minimum withdrawal is a miniscule 100 sats. This is almost nothing and dwarfs the minimum payouts that you’ll see from base layer faucets like Cointiply. I’ve personally been able to withdraw just over the minimum a handful of times to a Muun wallet that I downloaded specifically for the Lightning Network integration. As long as you have Muun and sMiles on the same device, the integration is very simple and you get your payout nearly instantly when you select “send sats” and then “send to default wallet.”

Summary

I like sMiles. Because I’m exercising regularly anyway, I’ll probably continue using it. Is it going to make me rich? Of course not. But it’s a fun way to make sure I’m getting off my butt enough during the day. Getting a tiny Bitcoin reward for checking in with my step count is a nice little bonus. Through using this for a month, I actually learned that I’m not getting up and walking nearly as much as I thought I was. So that’s something I’ll be addressing going forward. If you already log your steps with your phone or some other tracker, I think sMiles is a fun way to stay motivated. If you think this app is for you and you want to support my work, use my referral link when you signup.

Disclosure: I’m not an investment advisor. I merely share what I do and why I do it. You shouldn’t take anything I say as investment advice and always do your own research when making investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies, tokens, STONKs, and digital trinkets could all go to zero. I have no job and I live in my wife’s basement. I’m the last person on the face of the earth who you should listen to for financial advice or life advice. I have not been commissioned in any way to write this post by sMiles or it’s parent company StandApp Inc. However, I will receive a small satoshi reward for each referral link conversion. I have no exposure to STEPN NFTs, GST, or GMT.