That’s actually one of the most important questions we asked ourselves when designing PULSE. I completely agree: if the only reason to spend PACE is to earn more PACE later, then we haven’t solved the fundamental M2E problem — we’ve only delayed it. That’s why the first Worlds are mainly about progression: learning the game, building your setup, forging, improving shoes and Pods, and preparing for what comes next. But optimization and ROI are not meant to be the final destination. Merit and Challenge are where that philosophy starts to evolve. I can’t reveal the exact Merit mechanism yet, but it introduces a different reward system that isn’t simply about generating more PACE from your runs. Players will need a specialized Merit shoe, and Worlds 1 and 2 are essentially preparing them for that stage. Challenge goes in another direction: competition and community. Player vs player, country vs country, distance competitions, shoe-type competitions, special events, tournaments, rankings… We want people to compete because it’s fun, social and prestigious, not because every action needs to generate a financial return. Some of these competitions will probably appear earlier on a smaller scale, but the full Challenge World requires a large community to really work. And that’s also why our ambition goes far beyond Web3. We want PULSE to appeal to everyone, from someone walking the dog for 15 minutes to a serious athlete. Multisport is also part of that vision, with cycling planned as the first expansion. Ultimately, sustainability cannot depend only on constantly finding new Web3 players. People need reasons to spend because something is fun, rare, competitive, collectible or social — not simply because a spreadsheet predicts a better ROI. No one has proven a perfect long-term M2E model yet, so I won’t pretend we have all the answers before PULSE operates at scale. But after years of playing these games, studying what worked and what failed, we genuinely believe we’ve found a different model. And what you see today is still only part of it. Merit, Challenge and other mechanisms we haven’t revealed yet are important pieces of that model. ⚡

💡 In World 2/Expert Mode energy is no longer for free ✅️ daily energy CAP normally refills by 25% every 6h ❗️ your Energy Vault needs to contain enough energy to fuel the CAP & your runs ➡️ fuel the vault by recycling/burning shoes ➡️ forging becomes an intregal routine

💡 #PULSE will also offer a complete free-to-play mode, providing a sandal to the user. This sandal can later on be transformed into a full-value first shoe to start the full game experience with all its features 👟 Ideal for everyone who doesn't want to invest initially.

PULSE is evolving. ⚡Walk. Run. Progress. Build your strategy. This is just the beginning.MOVE. PLAY. PROGRESS.Built on Solana.#PULSE #Solana