As a long term player and investor of the Splinterlands Ecosystem, I’ve seen it Boom and Bust a couple of times now already. I remember back in about 2019 or early 2020 when the sentiment was terrible, there was a lot of people unhappy about the glut of Untamed Edition cards flooding the market and suppressing prices. It was a great time to buy because the ecosystem came roaring back to life in 2021...but is history really likely to repeat?
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Sentiment around Splinterlands today is probably just as bad as it was back then. It might even be worse. We’ve had the big bear market in crypto and while crypto has recovered somewhat – Splinterlands (and HIVE) hasn’t. We’ve had Riftwatchers and now a Rebellion Edition released while the ongoing glut of Chaos Legion continues to bleed valuation. An early release of Land Functionality sparked a little bit of excitement for a while but that hype seems to have blown off too. Checking the DApp Radar today it looks like Splinterlands has dropped to #27 on the game rankings...when it was previously at #1.
So what are we looking at here? Are there some Die-hards still clinging on to the hope that things are going to bounce soon, or are the rumours about big whales desperate to dump what holdings they have left true? As a contrarian I don’t like to sell low and it sure looks low now. I like to BUY when prices are low, but they could always go lower and it’s never smart to try and catch a falling knife.
I still have some land that I need to get productive and have been Dollar-Cost-Averaging to buy the workers I need, but it does feel a bit like throwing good money after bad. Maybe that’s a good sign, because feelings tend to dominate rationality at market extremes. I would probably be more confident if there was a pending functionality enhancement rather than just a new token or a new card edition being released. These just seem like cash grabs to keep the development team afloat while older players fall behind. Changing reward structures or ranking systems just seems like shifting deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.
My own recent strategy has been to get the land I own productive and keep the assets I’ve got earning by playing Brawls and Ranked. I set a Goal to do that and I’ll see it through so that probably means I’ve got another couple hundred USD worth of value to tip in, but after that I think I’ll be done on this cycle. For better or worse. I believe an uptick is well overdue so if we don’t get a recovery in the next 12 months it’s probably going to be a write-off because the ecosystem appears to just be bleeding players and value right now. That can’t go on for another year without a complete loss of confidence.
What about you? Has Splinterlands become a Money Pit? Perhaps it always was? Is there anyone out there still bullish and buying?
I think the fact that we have seen upticks in price shows there is still demand and value there. However the teams been mainly focused on trying to improve the game and get more people into the game. I think that's a little ass backwards at least in the crypto world. Instead the focus should be on value of cards but in particular how do we increase the value of SPS and land was a BIG part of what brought people into buying etc again.
Once the price of SPS goes up people are going to start talking about it, wanting it and will come back and play etc because let's be honest most people don't care that much for the game they care that they are earning value in the assets they have. I agree though that Chaos threw a big wrench in the system that needs to be cut out. Until DEC can be pegged again and there's not a million extra cards which many people are just burning for DEC further diluting the price of everything it's going to be a long hard road. We even saw that the burn event really was a failure IMO. It burned a small value and honestly if the DAO would have paid for it the DAO would have lost money lol.
There are so many tokens and assets now it looks a bit like smoke and mirrors. I thought there was a big push to bring DEC back up to peg, but now its SPS that is the main barometer of ecosystem health?
It's understandable that a game marketed as Play-To-Earn would end up with a player base keen on earning. It's a two-edged sword I suppose.
The biggest issue with brining DEC back to peg is there's nothing to stop it from going to the downside while the upside has pressure of SPS burn. But there's nothing to hold it at peg which I always thought was super weird why we try to peg it. Either peg it or don't lol
It's product-backed; so as long as there's demand for packs, and those packs can be bought for a certain number of DEC, that puts upward pressure on DEC. If it's selling at 75% of peg, then that's a 25% discount on packs bought with DEC.
The whole flywheel thing is super interesting. We just need a decent bull run to demonstrate what it's capable of.
Personally I think the feeling around the game if very bad, and yes as you said, we already had dark days in the past, but today I read a post of some missing updates, and the truth I think that maybe that, can change things.
First there is the SPS network, the use of Licenses and nodes, something that will be vital for more new users and an additional utility for SPS, on the other hand, we have Phase 2.0 of the lands, this could really change the economy and many other things, new spell cards, plus a bigger artifact economy where SPS and DEC will play a crucial role if you want to explore the lands.
This I think is the most important thing to come and could cause a natural bombshell regarding the game. I've been here a long time, but I hope everything gets better, at least that's what I think, let's see how things flow.
I feel like everything Hive related has been a money pit for me. Splinterlands has been quite a bad one as well. I was making a decent return renting cards at one point, but suddenly that stopped and the value of all my cards keep going doing down. On top of that, I have exponentially more SPS than I started with, but my entire holdings is worth less than the initial value of the small amount that I started with.
I've tried to stay optimistic with this ecosystem, but it gets harder each bull run watching nothing happen over and over again.
I feel like it is becoming a money pit, and I'm becoming more hesitant to put much more into the game. I hope the next bull run will rescue it, but I'm starting to have more and more doubts.
That is ultimately why I took a break. I couldn't remain competitive without continually investing in new cards. I always said I might come back if I had major profits to take... not back yet :P
Peace
I think it is all about to change, but first altcoin season must be the trigger
Price of SPS are at the lowest. If the bull run starts, nobody will see this price for a long time.
Regards
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 3/43) Liquid rewards.
Price drops, but the code doesn't get unwritten. We're building something cool, and there's nothing else like it. When the general crypto sentiment turns around and people go looking for undervalued projects that aren't going to rug; they'll find Splinterlands.
Code doesn't get unwritten but it does go out of date. I've seen Prospectors and other games fall by the wayside so to me its more about whether the development teams keep pace and can continually reinvigorate their product to maintain interest.
Deep down I have a lot of respect for Splinterlands and you have been consistently right about this space but I have been picking up some red flags lately. Maybe it's just the bad sentiment (which I see everywhere) seeping in.
Yes, it's easy to forget the ones that didn't make it. Prospectors seemed like a quality project too. I would've only lost pocket change there, so obviously not a sore point for me personally but it definitely looked like it had legs.
All we have is our best guess and our gut.
I'm an unrepentant ancap activist masquerading as an investor, so I don't really have that loss aversion voice in the back of my head.
As long as Splinterlands is the most potent mechanism (of which I'm aware) for restoring human freedom; I'll stay.