Audit log

Every state-changing event for Step App (FITFI): moderation decisions on community submissions, plus corrections and updates from the news pipeline. URL-based decisions are designed to carry three independent witnesses — the original source, an Internet Archive snapshot, and a Solana memo signed by our publicly-disclosed publisher key. Archive coverage is still being backfilled, so each decision below reports its own snapshot status rather than assuming one exists.

1. #1publishby system:backfill

   2026-08-24 17:04:17Z
   Score: ? → ? (no score change)
   anchorpending

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   A6wSom8z9kNr…GJBVCWatcopysha256 → base58

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   {"actor":"system:backfill","investigation_id":"5fc88167-26e1-412b-85d9-d4928ccdb3e0","kind":"publish","page_slug":"step-app-fitfi","published_at":"2026-08-24T17:04:17.719Z","sequence_num":1,"snapshot":{"content_type":"investigation","entity_name":"Step App (FITFI)","sections":[{"content":"Step App was a move-to-earn (M2E) fitness application launched in 2022 on Step Network, an Avalanche subnet. Users installed the iOS or Android app, tracked physical activity through GPS and accelerometer sensors, and earned KCAL — an in-app reward token — by walking, jogging, or running while staking SNEAK NFTs. SNEAK NFTs came in four speed-range variants whose attributes affected KCAL yield. FITFI served as the platform's governance token, also used for staking, network fees, and marketplace access. The platform additionally featured a built-in DEX, launchpad, cross-chain token bridge, and wellness marketplace. At peak, Step App reported more than 1 million downloads and billions of user steps logged. Usain Bolt served as the app's global brand ambassador beginning with its 2022 launch in Japan.","heading":"Platform Overview","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After Four Years as FITFI Collapses — Cointelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/step-app-winds-down-four-years-move-to-earn"},{"credibility":3,"name":"What Is Step App (FITFI)? — Bybit Learn","type":"other","url":"https://www.bybit.com/en/learn/gamefi/what-is-step-app-fitfi-kcal"}]},{"content":"Step App was co-founded by three individuals. Kirill Volgin (CEO) previously served as CFO at Zerion and founded Tokenary wallet, described as the first NFT wallet with a Safari extension. Dmitry Gordeychuk (CTO) was listed as Head of Blockchain at Symbiosis Finance with approximately five years of blockchain development experience. Dharpan Randhawa (President) was described as a 20-year sports industry veteran and former SVP at McLaren Racing, managing a commercial team with offices in Dubai, Singapore, and Shanghai. No known regulatory or criminal proceedings have been identified against any of the three founders as of the investigation date.","heading":"Founding Team","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":3,"name":"Step App (FITFI): Everything You Need to Know — Bittime","type":"other","url":"https://www.bittime.com/en/blog/step-app-(fitfi)"},{"credibility":3,"name":"Step App (FITFI) Live Price, Team and Founder — TokenInsight","type":"other","url":"https://tokeninsight.com/en/coins/step-app/team"}]},{"content":"The FITFI token held its initial DEX offering (IDO) on DAO Maker between April 11 and April 21, 2022, raising a reported $3.43 million — described at the time as a record raise on the DAO Maker platform. The IDO price was $0.0049 per token. Total token supply was approximately 4.6 billion FITFI. Allocation at launch was: Move-to-Earn mining rewards (32.61%), team (16.30%), marketing, acquisitions, and licenses (16.30%), public sale (15.22%), staking, liquidity, and market-making incentives (13.04%), and partners, advisors, and consultants (6.52%). IDO participants received 10% of their allocation at the token generation event, followed by a 90-day cliff and 5% monthly vesting thereafter. FITFI was listed on six exchanges at launch. The project chose not to seek traditional venture capital backing, opting for a public IDO instead.","heading":"Token Launch and Fundraising","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Step.app (FITFI) IDO Token Sale Review and Tokenomics — CryptoRank","type":"other","url":"https://cryptorank.io/ico/stepapp"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After 4 Years, FITFI Token Collapses — CryptoTimes","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/06/step-app-shuts-down-after-4-years-fitfi-token-collapses-to-near-zero-market-cap/"}]},{"content":"Step App's core economic mechanism required users to continuously earn KCAL by exercising, then spend KCAL on SNEAK NFT upgrades or sell it on the open market. FITFI governance tokens were emitted to reward stakers and ecosystem participants. Industry analysts and post-mortems across Cointelegraph and CryptoTimes have noted that this emission-based model created a structural imbalance: existing users were persistent net sellers of earned tokens, while the model depended on a constant inflow of new buyers and participants to sustain token prices. When macro conditions deteriorated after May 2022 and speculative interest in move-to-earn projects rotated elsewhere, both KCAL and FITFI experienced sustained selling pressure with no sufficient demand offset. The KCAL token, which reached peaks of $1 to $4 in the 2022–2023 period, had collapsed to approximately $0.01 by the time of shutdown. This structural pattern was common to the M2E category — most prominently illustrated by STEPN — and was identified in contemporaneous commentary as an inherent design risk, not merely a market outcome. No evidence has emerged that the Step App team made misleading disclosures about this risk, but critics have noted that promotional materials emphasized earning potential rather than structural exit-liquidity dependencies.","heading":"Tokenomics and Structural Sustainability Concerns","severity":"high","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After Four Years as FITFI Collapses — Cointelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/step-app-winds-down-four-years-move-to-earn"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After 4 Years, FITFI Token Collapses — CryptoTimes","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/06/step-app-shuts-down-after-4-years-fitfi-token-collapses-to-near-zero-market-cap/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Move-to-earn app Step App to shut down after four years — CryptoBriefing","type":"news_article","url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/step-app-shuts-down-operations/"}]},{"content":"FITFI reached its all-time high of approximately $0.73 in May 2022, shortly after its IDO launch. The token subsequently entered a sustained multi-year decline. By the time of shutdown on August 21, 2026, FITFI was trading at approximately $0.0001624 — a decline of approximately 99.9% from its peak. Market cap at shutdown was reported at approximately $12,229, making meaningful recovery of retail positions effectively impossible. Following the August 6, 2026 shutdown announcement, FITFI crashed approximately 88% within 24 hours. Multiple major exchanges delisted or suspended FITFI trading in the months leading up to shutdown: Bybit delisted the FITFI/USDT spot pair in April 2026, citing thin liquidity and low volume; KuCoin delisted FITFI on July 30, 2026 with a withdrawal deadline of August 31; Bithumb suspended FITFI trading on August 18, 2026 with withdrawals ending September 18; Upbit announced cessation of FITFI support on July 16, 2026. The cascade of exchange delistings substantially reduced retail liquidity ahead of the final shutdown, limiting users' ability to exit positions at any meaningful price.","heading":"Token Collapse and Exchange Delistings","severity":"critical","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App sets Aug. 21 shutdown deadline — Crypto.news","type":"news_article","url":"https://crypto.news/step-app-sets-aug-21-shutdown-deadline/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After 4 Years, FITFI Token Collapses — CryptoTimes","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/06/step-app-shuts-down-after-4-years-fitfi-token-collapses-to-near-zero-market-cap/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Emergency Exit Window Opens as Step App Ceases Operations — NullTX","type":"news_article","url":"https://nulltx.com/emergency-exit-window-opens-as-step-app-and-noones-cease-operations-today"}]},{"content":"Step App announced its permanent shutdown via its official X (formerly Twitter) account on August 6, 2026. The team stated: 'after four years of work, Step App is shutting down' and noted they had been 'sitting with this decision for a while.' No specific financial, technical, or regulatory explanation was provided. Cointelegraph reported it contacted the company but received no response before publication. Users were directed to unstake locked FITFI tokens, bridge tokens back to Avalanche C-Chain using official channels only, and manage exchange positions before August 21. No compensation plan, token swap, or successor platform was announced. Approximately 63,850 token holders were left with positions whose average value was measured in cents. Sweat Economy, a competing move-to-earn platform, issued public guidance warning Step App users to avoid phishing sites during the exit window, advising them to verify token arrivals through official channels only. No evidence of fraud, misappropriation of funds, or regulatory action has been identified in connection with the shutdown.","heading":"Shutdown and User Impact","severity":"high","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Emergency Exit Window Opens as Step App Ceases Operations — NullTX","type":"news_article","url":"https://nulltx.com/emergency-exit-window-opens-as-step-app-and-noones-cease-operations-today"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Move-to-earn app Step App to shut down after four years — CryptoBriefing","type":"news_article","url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/step-app-shuts-down-operations/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After Four Years as FITFI Collapses — Cointelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/step-app-winds-down-four-years-move-to-earn"}]},{"content":"Step App's reported 1 million-plus downloads indicates substantial retail participation. The IDO structure, which made FITFI publicly accessible at $0.0049 per token, produced a rapid 148x return at ATH for early participants and attracted retail buyers who entered at or near peak prices. Post-ATH retail entrants experienced losses exceeding 99.9% of invested value. The move-to-earn category, which included major projects such as STEPN (GMT/GST), broadly followed a similar trajectory: speculative user growth and token appreciation during the 2021–2022 bull cycle followed by rapid price collapse as new-user inflows dried up. Industry analysis published after the Step App closure noted that most tokenized fitness projects were structurally designed with everyday users on the perpetual sell side, with the protocol dependent on new participant inflows to sustain token economics. Step App's model was consistent with this broader category pattern.","heading":"Retail Exposure and Broader Move-to-Earn Context","severity":"high","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After Four Years as FITFI Collapses — Cointelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/step-app-winds-down-four-years-move-to-earn"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After 4 Years, FITFI Token Collapses — CryptoTimes","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/06/step-app-shuts-down-after-4-years-fitfi-token-collapses-to-near-zero-market-cap/"}]},{"content":"As of August 24, 2026, no regulatory actions, SEC or CFTC filings, criminal charges, or civil lawsuits have been identified against Step App, its founders, or its associated entities in connection with the FITFI or KCAL tokens or the platform's operations. The shutdown was attributed by the team to unsustainable tokenomics, not legal or regulatory pressure. This finding may be subject to revision if regulatory proceedings emerge.","heading":"Regulatory and Legal Status","severity":"low","sources":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App sets Aug. 21 shutdown deadline — Crypto.news","type":"news_article","url":"https://crypto.news/step-app-sets-aug-21-shutdown-deadline/"}]}],"sources_used":[{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After Four Years as FITFI Collapses — Cointelegraph","type":"news_article","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/step-app-winds-down-four-years-move-to-earn"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App Shuts Down After 4 Years, FITFI Token Collapses to Near-Zero Market Cap — CryptoTimes","type":"news_article","url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/06/step-app-shuts-down-after-4-years-fitfi-token-collapses-to-near-zero-market-cap/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Move-to-earn app Step App to shut down after four years — CryptoBriefing","type":"news_article","url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/step-app-shuts-down-operations/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Emergency Exit Window Opens as Step App and NoOnes Cease Operations Today — NullTX","type":"news_article","url":"https://nulltx.com/emergency-exit-window-opens-as-step-app-and-noones-cease-operations-today"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step App sets Aug. 21 shutdown deadline — Crypto.news","type":"news_article","url":"https://crypto.news/step-app-sets-aug-21-shutdown-deadline/"},{"credibility":2,"name":"Step.app (FITFI) IDO Token Sale Review and Tokenomics — CryptoRank","type":"other","url":"https://cryptorank.io/ico/stepapp"},{"credibility":3,"name":"Step App (FITFI) Live Price, Team and Founder — TokenInsight","type":"other","url":"https://tokeninsight.com/en/coins/step-app/team"},{"credibility":3,"name":"What Is Step App (FITFI)? — Bybit Learn","type":"other","url":"https://www.bybit.com/en/learn/gamefi/what-is-step-app-fitfi-kcal"},{"credibility":3,"name":"Step App (FITFI): Everything You Need to Know — Bittime","type":"other","url":"https://www.bittime.com/en/blog/step-app-(fitfi)"}],"summary":"Step App was a move-to-earn fitness application built on Avalanche that rewarded users with KCAL and FITFI tokens for physical activity such as walking and running. The platform permanently shut down all services on August 21, 2026, after four years of operation. Its FITFI governance token collapsed approximately 99.9% from its all-time high of $0.73, leaving retail holders with positions valued in fractions of a cent and a total market cap at shutdown of roughly $12,229.","timeline":[{"date":"2022-04-11","event":"FITFI IDO opens on DAO Maker at $0.0049 per token, raising a reported $3.43 million over the April 11–21 sale period.","source":"CryptoRank IDO Analysis","source_url":"https://cryptorank.io/ico/stepapp"},{"date":"2022-05-05","event":"FITFI reaches its all-time high of approximately $0.73, representing roughly a 148x return from IDO price.","source":"CryptoTimes","source_url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/06/step-app-shuts-down-after-4-years-fitfi-token-collapses-to-near-zero-market-cap/"},{"date":"2022-07-01","event":"Step App launches in Japan with Usain Bolt as global brand ambassador.","source":"Bybit Learn","source_url":"https://www.bybit.com/en/learn/gamefi/what-is-step-app-fitfi-kcal"},{"date":"2022-10-01","event":"Step App records over 1 million downloads, reaching peak user base.","source":"CryptoBriefing","source_url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/step-app-shuts-down-operations/"},{"date":"2026-04-01","event":"Bybit delists the FITFI/USDT spot trading pair, citing thin liquidity and low volume.","source":"Crypto.news","source_url":"https://crypto.news/step-app-sets-aug-21-shutdown-deadline/"},{"date":"2026-07-16","event":"South Korean exchanges Upbit and Bithumb announce plans to end FITFI trading support.","source":"Bloomingbit / Cointelegraph","source_url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/step-app-winds-down-four-years-move-to-earn"},{"date":"2026-07-30","event":"KuCoin delists FITFI with a withdrawal deadline of August 31, 2026.","source":"Crypto.news","source_url":"https://crypto.news/step-app-sets-aug-21-shutdown-deadline/"},{"date":"2026-08-06","event":"Step App announces permanent shutdown via X, setting August 21, 2026 as the final operational date. FITFI crashes approximately 88% within 24 hours of the announcement.","source":"CryptoTimes","source_url":"https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/08/06/step-app-shuts-down-after-4-years-fitfi-token-collapses-to-near-zero-market-cap/"},{"date":"2026-08-18","event":"Bithumb suspends FITFI trading; withdrawals to end September 18, 2026.","source":"Crypto.news","source_url":"https://crypto.news/step-app-sets-aug-21-shutdown-deadline/"},{"date":"2026-08-21","event":"Step App permanently terminates all services. FITFI market cap at approximately $12,229. Roughly 63,850 token holders left with near-worthless positions.","source":"NullTX","source_url":"https://nulltx.com/emergency-exit-window-opens-as-step-app-and-noones-cease-operations-today"}]},"v":1}

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