Genopets

Genopets is a free move-to-earn phone game on Solana. You raise a digital pet. The steps your phone counts each day become Energy, which levels the pet up. If you own a Habitat NFT, you can also turn Energy into the KI token.

The app is still available, but it has stopped getting updates. Its last update came in April 2025. The team now works on Elite Agents, an AI agent platform. The Genopets account on X has been silent since July 2025.

Is Genopets dead? Status of the game in 2026

Genopets has not announced a shutdown, but it has not shipped anything new since early 2025. The App Store listing, the website and the whitepaper were all still online in November 2026. The app itself stopped changing.

The App Store listing shows a last update in April 2025, and it only fixed bugs. The last real feature, an early look at Adventure Mode, came out in January.

The team's time has gone elsewhere. In May 2025, Genopets said its work over the past few months had gone into the Elite Agents marketplace. The X account is now named "Genopets - WHITTAKR Agent Era". Its last post, in July 2025, was about the ELITE token claim for GENE stakers.

If you are thinking of starting now, expect a game with no new features since January 2025. Watch the App Store listing and the Genopets X account for any sign of new releases or a sunset.

How Genopets move-to-earn works: steps, Energy and banking

Genopets turns walking into game progress. Your phone counts your steps. You open the app and "bank" them, which converts them into Energy. Energy is the fuel for everything else: levelling up your Genopet, evolving it, and battling.

Banking is a daily habit by design. The whitepaper's Energy formula says unbanked steps are lost at the end of each day. Each extra step also returns less Energy than the one before. A Level 1 Genopet gets about 1,429 Energy from 10,000 steps, per the whitepaper. A Level 30 pet gets about 3,386 from the same walk.

So one very long walk earns less per step than a steady daily habit. The game rewards walking a bit every day, not one big effort. Levelling up your pet improves the rate.

The pet itself starts with a five-question quiz that "summons" a creature matched to you, as the App Store listing describes. You then feed it, play with it and keep its mood up. The game page also lists turn-based battle minigames and quests in a world called Esoterra.

Genopets Habitats and KI token harvesting

Habitats are the NFTs that unlock earning in Genopets. Without one, you play for free but earn nothing tradeable. With one, you can convert Energy into KI, refine crystals, and craft items.

KI comes from a slow exchange. The harvesting rules make you wait at least seven days, at 105 Energy per KI. Waiting 14 days improves the rate to 50 Energy per KI. Each Habitat also has a daily KI cap tied to its level; a single Level 3 Habitat allows 70 KI a day.

The whitepaper lists ways to get a Habitat. You can buy one on Magic Eden ME$0.043-5.7%, terraform a new one from GENE, KI, crystals and a seed, or rent one from another player. Renting lets you harvest KI and craft without owning the NFT. The same page lists an in-app Habitat marketplace as coming later.

Owning a Habitat is not a one-off cost. Habitats decay over time, and you repair them by burning refined crystals. A Habitat that runs out of lifespan goes dormant until repaired.

KI is meant to be spent inside the game. Its token page shows how little it trades.

Genopets GENE token, staking and sGENE

GENE is Genopets' governance and staking token. The dual-token docs say it was used for Genesis NFT sales, seasonal drops and crafting rare items. Staking GENE earns rewards, and the docs say staking will be how holders vote on future decisions.

GENE unlocks over 60 months from its launch, per the tokenomics page. In December 2022, most private-sale buyers, the lead investors and the founders agreed to extend their vesting by a year. The founders moved to a four-year vest.

Staking rewards can be withdrawn as sGENE, a version of GENE for in-game use only. The dual-token docs say sGENE cannot be swapped back to GENE or listed on an exchange, and it is burned when you spend it.

Longer locks count for much more. The airdrop reward weight gives a one-year lock five times the weight and a two-year lock 25 times. Your share of any airdrop depends on everyone else's weight too.

Genopets and Elite Agents: the ELITE airdrop for GENE stakers

Elite Agents is the Genopets team's AI project, and staking GENE was the way in. In January 2025, Genopets said ELITE would be a fair-launch token, with "no private round, no insiders", and that GENE stakers could claim an airdrop. In July 2025 it set that share at 40% of the ELITE supply.

The two projects first met inside the game. In January 2025, Genopets added Adventure Mode. You take a wide photo of the place around you. An AI guide called WHITTAKR, powered by Elite Agents, turns it into the plants and animals of the game world.

Elite Agents opened its marketplace for AI agents in beta in May 2025. Genopets said some of its abilities came from Genopets community members. Genopets took the final GENE snapshot on 30 July 2025. It says more than 12,000 wallets took part.

If you staked GENE for the claim, check Elite Agents' own channels for the claim status. The Genopets account has posted no update on it since the snapshot.

Who Genopets suits, and who should skip it

Genopets suits casual walkers who want a free phone pet game that nudges them to move each day. The game is free to download, and you can summon a pet and level it up without buying anything.

It is a poor fit if you want to earn. Tradeable rewards need a Habitat, bought or rented, and the KI you harvest trades thinly. It is also a poor fit if you want a game that keeps growing. No new features have shipped since January 2025.

Long-time GENE stakers are a third group. Their interest has moved from the game to the ELITE claim, so the Elite Agents channels matter more to them than this app does.

Genopets risks: stalled development, thin liquidity and audits

The biggest risk is that the game has stopped moving. A move-to-earn game needs new players and new things to spend tokens on, and Genopets has added neither since January 2025. Any NFT or token you buy for Genopets depends on a game that gets no updates.

The second risk is thin trading. KI's token page shows very little activity, so selling even a modest amount could move the price a long way. Check GENE's live market as well before you act.

On security, a firm called SolShield checked the GENE staking code. The whitepaper says every issue it found was fixed. That audit covers the staking program only. We found no published audit of the Habitat, crafting or marketplace programs.

On Solana, a program's upgrade authority is the key that can change its code. We could not confirm who holds that key for Genopets' four on-chain programs. If that matters to you, look the programs up on a Solana explorer.

Much of the game is not on the blockchain. The whitepaper says daily banking rewards such as food and toys are off-chain items in your in-game inventory. Those depend on Genopets keeping its servers running.

Genopets vs STEPN and other move-to-earn alternatives

STEPN is another move-to-earn app built on Solana, and the two take opposite approaches. STEPN asks you to buy an NFT sneaker before you can earn, according to Decrypt's explainer. Genopets lets you play free and puts earning behind a Habitat.

The free start makes Genopets cheaper to try, since you can test the step loop before spending anything. Earning is slower, though. Genopets' KI exchange makes you wait seven to 14 days per harvest.

If you only want a pet that rewards walking, Genopets still offers that loop. If earning tokens or a growing game is the point, check how active any alternative is before you buy in.

Genopets team, funding and history

Albert Chen, Benjamin Tse and Jay Chang founded Genopets in the fall of 2021, per its team page. Chen is the CEO and CTO. That October, it raised $8.3 million led by Konvoy Ventures and Pantera Capital, Blockworks reported. Animoca Brands and Solana Capital also took part.

The game launched in early access. Its App Store history shows new features through 2024, such as step battles and a player market. Its Telegram mini-game, Pixelton Arena, brought in more than a million players, says Genopets' year-end recap. The app also added daily challenges and dropped invite codes so anyone could sign up.

Albert Chen talked about why the game runs on Solana in a 2024 podcast. In late 2024, the team built Elite Agents for a Solana AI hackathon, the same recap says. That led to WHITTAKR, Adventure Mode and then the Elite Agents market.