Move-to-earn apps have been circulating within Web3 since the early 2020s. Despite their use of blockchain technology and ability to onboard users in a fun and easy-to-understand manner, move-to-earn apps have also helped create healthier habits by rewarding users with monetary incentives.
Research has shown financial incentives for physical activity are effective. Especially with only 23% of Americans meeting the recommended amount of physical activity, move-to-earn apps have the potential to motivate sedentary people to enjoy healthier lifestyles. Coupled with blockchain technology, the integration of AI, and different gamification techniques, these apps can form communities and seamlessly onboard users onto web3 whilst promoting healthy living. Aiming to be part of this is Morningstar Venture’s portfolio company Dotmoovs – a move-to-earn app set out to provide the best digital sports experience by combining blockchain technology and AI. Dotmoovs is also working with our newly launched consultancy arm - MSV Studio on raising more awareness for their app and driving user adoption.
This month's review will cover everything from the founding team behind Dotmoovs to the $MOOV tokenomics, the app's gameplay, and recent partnerships. The review will end with an analysis of what we like about Dotmoovs and where we see potential challenges for the project.
What is Dotmoovs
Dotmoovs is an innovative blockchain-driven app for peer-to-peer physical activity competitions. The app efficiently scores all in-app sports challenges in minutes using AI algorithms. By downloading the app for free, people worldwide can use it on their smartphones by competing and participating in different challenges.
Players can choose from three sports:
- Freestyle Football
- Dance
- Fitness (Coming Soon)
All games can be played in either practice mode, where players can practice their moves and don’t compete with anyone but themselves. Or competitive mode, where players can play against their friends or famous athletes.
No initial investment is required to join the Dotmoovs sports arena; only players who want to compete must purchase NFT sports equipment or rent it for a lower price on their marketplace.
Dotmoovs can evaluate a player’s performance and give personalized feedback through motion detection, LIDAR sensors, and AI-on-Edge. This feature distinguishes the app from other health and fitness apps, as it can cater to the users’/athletes' needs and analyze what is best for their body type, condition, and performance. Furthermore, the personalization of the technology can potentially lead to the creation of useful health and movement data for Dotmoovs and other health apps.
Founding Team, Fundraising, and Interoperability
Dotmoovs was founded in 2021 by Francisco Varela, Pedro Rente Lourenço, and Salomé Azevedo. Driven by a shared passion for entrepreneurship and sports, Pedro and Salomé, who have a biomedical engineering background, set out to create a Web3 app that required no previous knowledge from ecosystem users.
Based in Lisbon, Portugal, the team has expanded to 20+ people, all bringing various expertise and disciplines to further the app's growth.
In May 2021, Dotmoovs raised around $1 million from private investors. To date, 82K+ users across 190+ countries have downloaded and used the app. With only two sports modes live, the team aims to see an increase in active users after more features and game modes launch. One of the new modes of play will be “Fitness”, which aims to be released in October 2023 and attract even more users to the app.
Game Economy, NFT Collections, and Tokenomics of $MOOV
As mentioned above, players (or athletes) can choose to play in practice or competition modes.
Playing in the competitive mode of Dotmoovs requires special sports gear called NFT Sports Equipment. Dotmoovs aims to mimic playing real sports but on an app – meaning, the harder the challenge, the faster your NFT equipment/gear gets used up, just like your football cleats would in real life. The gear has a functional value in the game, allowing you to win better prizes and rewards in $MOOV.
Athletes who compete in Dotmoovs earn XMOOVs points by doing well in challenges. These points help you buy NFTs in the game. You can play for fun without spending anything, or you can choose to pay a bit to play in the competitive mode. When you join the game and set up your account, you will get some free XMOOVs.
Using the renting feature, users can lend their gear to others.
From the renter's perspective, one can use another player's gear and pay for the challenge's cost. Dotmoovs has a natively built marketplace where NFT owners can lend out their assets, enabling players to participate in the competitive mode without spending too much money. By doing so, Dotmoovs can reduce the barrier to entry while allowing the borrower and lender to split the funds.
Partnerships and Ambassadors
Over the years, the team has secured exciting partnerships and collaborations with famous names. For example, Christiano Ronaldo’s mom recently became an app ambassador and participated in football juggling competitions.
Alongside partnerships, Dotmoovs also encourages artists who want to display their NFTs in the Dotmoovs ecosystem to apply and potentially get the opportunity to join the community.
Tokenomics - $MOOV
Dotmoovs native token, $MOOV, is available on 14 exchanges, including Uniswap, Pancakeswap, and Huobi. They have also closed partnerships with leading crypto projects and blockchains, such as Polkastarter, where the team successfully conducted its Initial DEX Offering (IDO).
The token fuels the ecosystem and game economy, with its main utility ranging from:
- Buy NFT gear
- Restore NFT gear
- Upgrade NFT gear
- Gain access to physical goods & enter digital sports events
- Enter Dotmoovs community events and prize pools
Our Analysis:
Strengths:
- The integration of AI within the app is an opportunity for the project to grow, given the technology’s current hype and growth potential. According to a McKinsey report, generative AI alone has the potential to add $4.4 trillion to the total economy by helping people with simple tasks. The technology behind the app will not only give people a healthier lifestyle, but its personalization capabilities will give people a more tailored workout, potentially making it more motivating and healthier for each individual. Moreover, Dotmoovs has a first-mover advantage, as they are one of the first apps to combine a Web3 element and AI in a sports app, making them different from the different Web3 sports apps already in the market. Moreover, at the moment, AI in training apps is a proven model within Web2 applications, but Dotmoovs has the potential to grow because of its token, loyal community, and integration of blockchain technology.
- Through strong and renowned partnerships, Dotmoovs gained much attention from users. Despite its Web3 features and token model, Dotmoovs strong point is the user-friendliness and fun around the app – democratizing web3 adoption and making it easier for people to onboard to the concept. As the team continues to create new gameplay modes, the app is well-positioned to onboard new users.
- The team is working on creating a B2B arm, enabling companies to build apps and solutions with Dotmoovs already existing AI technology. “Dotmoovs Business“ offers an API companies can use to build apps that, with scene understanding models, can provide people detection, tracking, motion planning, and 3D scene interpretation. Dotmoovs Business will open new business avenues for the team and revenue streams. Furthermore, it allows more companies to explore the potential of AI.
Challenges:
- The digital health and fitness app market is a highly concentrated and competitive industry. Generating almost $1.7 billion in revenue just last year, consumers do not fall short of their option of fitness apps. Furthermore, Web3 fitness apps have also been emerging with StepN and Walken. Nevertheless, Dotmoovs unique integration of AI and strong community can help the team overcome the challenging landscape of the market and make their unique mark.
- At the moment, Dotmoovs only has two types of games live on the market – dance, and football. The team is creating more games and challenges for people with different fitness interests to reach a wider audience. Furthermore, to play in the competitive mode, people need to buy an NFT; this might hinder some people from playing on Dotmoovs due to a lack of knowledge or even funds to pay for the initial NFT costs.
What’s Next for Dotmoovs
In 2023, the team aims to complete the NFT personalization feature and the AI + Fitness on Edge. In 2024, the team seeks to develop the existing tournaments feature further and introduce fan sponsorships. They’re also considering advancing their technology to provide dotmoovs users with VR-based sports experiences in 2025. The most anticipated feature is the addition of their third sport - Fitness. The team aims to attract more users who are perhaps not interested in a specific sport but want to get moving and do their exercise daily.
Learn more about Dotmoovs:
🌐 Official website: https://www.dotmoovs.com/
📡 Official Global Telegram Community: https://t.me/dotmoovs
🐦 Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/dotmoovs
📜 Blog: https://dotmoovs.medium.com/
🕹️ Discord channel: https://discord.com/invite/dotmoovs
