The Future of Hive: Splinterlands — and the Importance of OUTER WORLD Use Cases!

in LeoFinance3 years ago

Unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere, I imagine you've heard about the recent explosive success of Splinterlands. Originally conceived as "SteemMonsters," some three years ago, Spliterlands is — in the broadest interpretation — an all-digital blockchain-based multiplayer game in the tradition of venerable "Magic The Gathering" ("MTG" for short).

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When it first appeared, I remember being really excited because here was finally a use case that was clearly reaching out well beyond the somewhat isolated niche of blockchainiacs and crypto enthusiasts.

SteemMonsters broke a number of "molds" being used up to that point, not least of which was the fact that — indirect as it might have been — it was the only way to get onboard with Steem Hive using a debit card or PayPal.

"Normal" people didn't have to jump through a bunch of techy loops to get started!

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Potential on a HUGE Scale!

At the time the very first version of "SteemMonsters" arrived, I was the owner/operator of a small brick-and-mortar art gallery and gift store, here in our local town.

One of our niches was "Fantasy and Surreal" art, and in the course of running the gallery, I got to know a number of both customers and artists who were deeply involved in the original MTG trading card game.

If you're not familiar with Magic The Gathering, the very short version is that it was released in 1993 and has become one of the most celebrated games in history. It was the first trading card game, and by today has in excess of thirty five MILLION players, with an estimated twenty five BILLION or more collectible game play cards printed.

Keep in mind that the game started entirely in physical space, and since migrated to online versions, primarily "MTG Arena" and "MTG Online."

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28 Years and Counting!

Over the past 28 years, some 20,000 unique MTG cards have been issued, and the cards have become highly collectible. One of the MTG artists I got to know quite well — who created a number of very early cards — routinely would see hand signed versions of his designs sell for $2,000 and up, each.

In January 2021, the highest price paid to date for an MTG card reached US $511,000 in a sale on eBay.

The reason I offer this MTG background information is just to show the huge scale of this particular gaming niche which Splinterlands is plugging into.

Meanwhile — even though the idea of NFTs existedcollectible art card venue NeonMob had already thoroughly established the idea of uniquely identified and limited edition virtual trading cards by 2015. Not many people talk about NeonMob's role in setting precedents because they are not blockchain based.

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The "External" Use Case

Part of what remains so exciting about Splinterlands now is the market the game reaches, and the implications for Hive.

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Let's be perfectly honest here... it's one thing to make an amazing dApp that's aimed at users who are either (A) already inside the Hive ecosystem or (B) already inside and familiar with the Cryptosphere. These may be great, but in the long term their growth potential may be limited because you're essentially reaching out to users who are already sold on the idea of being here.

This really became crystal clear to me a few weeks back when our 32-year old son — who's an avid online gamer — came to spend a long weekend with us.

As we were sitting out on the back porch talking one night, he briefly mentioned poking around in "play to earn" crypto-based games... so I asked him if he'd heard of "SplinterLands."

Which he actually had. I filled him in a bit more — just on the GAME, itself — and he actually ended up getting started while he was here!

But here's the kicker: He'd heard of SplinterLands and had looked at it, but he had never heard of Hive! And yet... he now has a Hive account that's marginally powered up to have a few resource credits.

Is he ever going to post content and blog on Hive? VERY unlikely. But he's now participating in something that runs on the Hive blockchain.

Fast Forward to the Present Moment

I regularly follow @penguinpablo's various statistical reports on the state of Hive.

Lately, some very interesting trends have shown up; trends that broadly can be attributed to the sudden growth of Splinterlands.

Most significant of these is the sudden meteoric rise in the number of Hive accounts being created:

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Source: @penguinpablo August 27th Daily Report

After many many months of generally 250-500 new accounts being created daily, that WALL over to the right of the graphic represents "The Splinterlands Effect," with August 26th, 2021 coming within a whisker of 10,000 new accounts created in a single day!

Regardless of whether or not these folks are bloggers or not... it represents a huge increase in usage as well as a reason to own Hive.

How does the price of a cryptocurrency rise? Well, let's start with giving people a good reason to OWN it! Demand goes up because people need to own something; available supply goes down because those tokens are removed from the marketplace.

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Hive as "Ethereum 2.0?"

For me, the interesting thing about this entire development is the fact that Hive is enjoying this sudden growth spurt not as a result of Hive, itself, but because of something that's drawing massive amounts of attention to itself in its own right.

Just like our son, I'd be willing to bet that many of these people buying into SplinterLands — and thus Hive — have little or no idea what "Hive" is, nor is it particularly important to them, because they are here for the game.

Why should we care? We should care because any increase in the price of Hive is now demand driven rather than speculation driven.

In a sense, what we're seeing now with SplinterLands strikes me as very similar to the numerous things that are built on the Ethereum blockchain and are used daily by people who have only a peripheral idea what "Ethereum" actually is.

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Whereas I realize that many of us around here are bloggers and content creators — and I certainly plan to continue being precisely that — ultimately it seems likely that Hive will increasingly take on the nature of a "utility" token and blockchain, rather than "a thing onto itself." Just like I'm pretty sure there are lots of UniSwap users who don't particularly know or care about ETH.

But that's not a BAD thing! Let's not forget that the ETH token could be bought for less than $10 in early 2017, and today it trades at close to $3,300, a gain of 330x! $100 Hive, anyone?

It could happen...

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your weekend!

What do YOU think? How important will "externally targeted" dapps be to the growth of Hive and its communities? How far do you think Splinterlands will go? If more and more Hive is tied up in being USED, how will the markets respond? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210829 16:58 PDT

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I need more Hive....

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I have been here since the Steem days and personally think the problem with Hive (or Steem) is the fact it is linked to the blogging frontend and people have a very hard time to realise how awesome this blockchain is, because the value is coupled to curation or blogging, which honestly does not bring you a lot in terms of financial returns unless you are one of the whales in this ecosystem (and for them even there are way better things to invest in from a return point of view). The splinterlands ingame currency DEC allows you to instantly buy or rent cards within their eco system. You literally see the fruits of your time invested. This makes the 'blockchain' aspect so much more real for the 'normies'.

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3speak has a chance now to really drive this point home. If they can achieve even a third of the success of Splinrerlands, it will show people what Hive could become and will attract lots of other projects.

Imagine you’ve heard of both splinterlands and 3speak and then learning that they are built on the same platform. The network effect will be massive for hive.

There are a few things that can drive this point home. It is amazing to watch.

We are in a great position for the future.

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Regardless of how much money I made due to splinterlands, I hate it and would pay someone to censor that word from my feed.

he now has a Hive account that's marginally powered up to have a few resource credits.

Actually, he didn't have to do that either, but it helps with the growing need of RCs. Splinterlands delegates HP to accounts running out of RCs when playing Splinterlands (and takes it out if the RCs are close to max when the script checks).

Great post and couldn't agree more. Hive ecosystem is growing and in my opinion has become for some time more than a blogging ecosystem. We have games, simple or more complex tokens (with or without inflation) and soon smart contracts, NFTs, passive investment funds, video content and a link into the podcast world, plus potential bitcoin tipping via the lightning network (linked with Hive). I'm probably missing a lot from this enumeration.

Splinterlands has been a beacon and a locomotive at the same time a number of times for the Hive ecosystem (and previously) in terms of adoption and solid business model. This is just the most recent wave, and the most impressive so far.

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Your content has been voted as a part of Encouragement program. Keep up the good work!

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Hive is truly Ethereum 2.0, not Ethereum 2.0.

We have what they are trying to build. It is time to keep pushing forward.

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We are only at the start of both NFTs and DeFi only a year in now for when it really all took off and came to be. It's like buying bitcoin when it rallied for the first time to $500

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Congratulations @denmarkguy! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

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To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:

Hive Power Up Day - September 1st 2021 - Hive Power Delegation

ultimately it seems likely that Hive will increasingly take on the nature of a "utility" token and blockchain, rather than "a thing onto itself.

It was always the thing onto itself and a utility token at the same time, that's what a Web3 blockchain is.

Hive is activity agnostic, content creation is just a great way to bring people together.

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I don't know if I would consider HIVE as ETH 2.0 because it makes me wonder about fees. At least I think HIVE is something separate compared to ETH.

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Everything I know about splinterland I learned from reading your post!

To be honest I hate games but it sounds like it puts bums on seats...

The Splinterlands Effect!!!

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This was excellent and contained some fantastic insights. I can't quite imagine $100 Hive but it would be life changing for sure if it were to even reach something like $20 years and years down the road. I don't know what to think of it really, it feels unlikely but maybe people felt the same way about ETH. I'm going to feature this on a little segment I do called Leo All Stars in just a few minutes! Great stuff.

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For this reason I do not want to sell any of my cards, no matter if they are of low value or not so important, I know that in a few years they will be very valuable, since the source will not last forever and the market will explode.

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Yes, this is a great development and I like to say:

We need more Splinterland Dapps on Hive

but we need to make sure that the chain can handle the traffic....

Have a great day and a !BEER from me


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