Why we’re excited about cycling
$DOSE is a token for the fitness metaverse. In this fitness metaverse, we envision fitness games that are interoperable through blockchain. If you cycle for 100 hours and unlock a yellow jersey, you’ll get the jersey as an NFT that can now be used in our other games such as Dustland Runner.
That’s why we are excited about the acquisition of SOL Cycling. An open world cycling game that Scott Williams has been building for 2 years. Scott reached out to Adrian Hon, the creator of Zombies Run to ask for some advice on gamifying fitness with the secret intention to license the Zombies Run IP for the game. I remember Scott telling me how cool it would be to have the Zombies Run story inside SOL Cycling.
The moment we saw SOL Cycling, we knew we had to work with the team to incorporate it into our $DOSE metaverse. The setting of mars is very similar to our imagined world of Dustland and the potential of having combining the game with the great storyline of Dustland written by our award winning author Mur Lafferty is too hard to resist.
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Biking boom
In addition to SOL cycling matching Dustland perfectly and Scott’s amazing talent, we really like the macro trends in cycling.
- In 2020, cyclists on Strava logged 8.1B miles globally.
- The global bicycle market is expected to reach $92.5B by 2028.
- In the 12 months ending April 2021, bicycle sales were up 57% YoY, reaching $6.5B. While recreational bikes sold out, high-end rigs also flew off the shelves.
- In June of last year, performance bike prices above $1,000 saw tremendous growth, with gravel bikes (+144%), full-suspension mountain bikes (+92%), and road bikes (+87%) leading the way. At the same time, considered essential gear for serious cyclists, indoor trainer sales grew by 250%.
- Market leader Peloton ($PTON) grew revenue 100% YoY since 2016, $60M to $1.8B in 2020.
Indoor cycling
Zwift has raised $620M in funding. Popular with serious cyclists, including many professional riders, members use their own bike and an indoor trainer to compete in virtual races on Zwift’s video game-like platform.
- virtual cycling platform ROUVY landed $6M in funding.
- In July, endurance tech company Wahoo Fitness secured a “significant” investment.
- In June, Velocity raised $3.4M for its virtual cycling app.
- Last fall, smart bike maker Wattbike added a $15M investment.
How do you play SOL cycling?
There’s alot of smart fitness bikes out there such as Wahoo and Wattbike that can run up to $3000 but you can also buy an ANT+ speed sensor for as low as $20 and attach that to your existing bike.
Similar to the early days of VR headsets when players bought ALL the games available on the game store, albeit with a very limited selection. We believe players who buy a smart trainer or ANT+ sensors are looking for MORE apps and games to play. There are millions of people who have bought smart trainers and sensors looking for more.
Fitness 4.0
1.0 Jane Fonda, Bowflex, P90X
2.0 Connected hardware, live/on-demand classes
3.0 Fitness is a game
4.0 Fitness metaverse (Blockchain)
We believe that we are currently in the fitness as a game period with such hits as Zwift, Ringfit and Pokemon Go. What we’re building at OliveX is a fitness metaverse where all the fitness games will be interoperable through blockchain.
What’s next?
As the first blockchain cycle-for-reward game for cycling in the world, we strongly believe that combining our blockchain, story telling and publishing expertise with the SOL team’s game will create a category defining game for cyclists worldwide. I can’t wait to work with SOL cycle and turn it into Dustland Cycle as soon as possible!
Keith Rumjahn is CEO and founder of Dustland. He is an expert on fitness and a speaker on move to earn at multiple conferences.