Move-to-earn game Stepn has rolled out an NFT marketplace within its newly launched iOS app to enable iPhone users to buy digital items. In a tweet yesterday, Stepn developer Find Satoshi Lab said it had partnered with Apple Pay to let users purchase NFTs using debit and credit cards.
NFT purchases through mobile apps haven’t been common due to the 30% fee introduced by Google and Apple. That said, Steph developer will include the extra fee in the total cost of buying an NFT through its mobile app.
Find Satoshi Labs has also introduced an in-app currency known as Sparks (not a cryptocurrency). Users looking to buy NFT sneakers must first purchase a certain amount of Sparks using Apple Pay. After that, they can then use their Sparks to acquire some NFTs.
It is worth highlighting that buying Stepn NFTs with Sparks is more expensive than purchasing them using the game’s native crypto token GMT through a web marketplace. For example, the cheapest pair of NFT sneakers goes for 108 GMT or about $30.40 as of this writing. Purchasing the same NFT through Stepn’s iOS app will cost you 450 Sparks or roughly $45.20. That’s approximately a 40% increase.
Manghani Explains Reasons for Price Increase on Stepn’s iOS App
Shiti Manghani, Stepn’s Chief Operating Officer, took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to clarify that the price displayed in the company’s iOS application is inclusive of the 30% fee charged by Apple. Manghani said the price adjustment was necessary to ensure that Stepn is compliant with Apple’s regulations.
She also explained that if a trader lists their NFT on the Stepn marketplace and is bought by an iOS app user, then the firm will pay the seller in GMT tokens, and the remaining Sparks will be used to shoulder Apple’s 30% fee.
The considerably high fees imposed by Google and Apple have been a stumbling block for decentralized app developers looking to support in-app purchases. By comparison, most NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Blur only charge about 2.5% of the transaction cost.
Many Web3 projects, such as NBA Top Shot and Axie Infinity, have launched their respective iOS apps but decided not to support in-app NFT trading. These projects have been urging Apple to consider reducing its cut, but that has yet to happen.
At the moment, iOS apps are not allowed to direct their users to a third-party payment platform. But that could change soon thanks to a court ruling last month that declared Apple’s 30% tax illegal.
Either way, Manghani describes Stepn’s move to introduce in-app purchases as a significant step towards its target of onboarding over 100 million users into the Web3 space.
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