Confidence and Commitment
Couple of days back I published a post Splinterlands and hive health check up for top 2000 Splinterlands players. These are original plots that I like to produce and I am producing them for many years now. They help me and the community visualize how we are doing as a group and individually. One of the things people commented and I thought myself as well, is the question how did manage this token acquisition...
It is a hard question. Because each person is different with different goal, financial background and start time, so their stake changed at a very different rate. However, how their stake changed over time give us a measure of their confidence in the Splinterlands project and their commitment to greater hive ecosystem. So, in order to tackle this problem with the help of @beaker007 I chose 6 random players and I wanted to see their stake evolved with time!
| Player | SPS Staked |
|---|---|
| bravetofu | 63,654,356.41 |
| azircon | 18,114,812.00 |
| seattlea | 569,199.11 |
| beaker007 | 410,219.29 |
| unitmaster | 216,889.69 |
| beelzael | 171,377.95 |
As you can see from the plot and the table below, They have very different current stake. @bravetofu amassed nearly 64M SPS while @beelzael has 171K SPS. However, each player have one thing in common, they have accumulated stake, and that can only mean one thing that they are confident on the long term vision of the project and they are committed to the hive ecosystem. @unitmaster sold some SPS too, and that is okay, but he still have a lot SPS compared to where he started.
When did they staked?
I have the longest history, started in July 2021, pretty much when staking was first started, and you can see that my stake only increased. Bravetofu started slightly later than me, but boy did he pick up the pace?! Summer of 2023 and then summer of 2024 brave bought massive amount of SPS. He accumulated virtually every day. I on the other hand, was mostly chunky, and obviously I couldn't keep up with brave!
If you look at the rate of purchase chart, you can see there are green bars virtually every week from July 2024 to February 2025. That is relentless buying of SPS. Also brave is still buying with his largest single day buying spike on:
2025-08-30 bravetofu bought 2,976,939.732 SPS on a single day!
Let me say that again, that is nearly 3M SPS that brave bought on August 30 this year! If that is not showing confidence in the project, I don't know that does! That is $22,128 purchase on a single day!
Why are people staking SPS?
People stake SPS (Splintershards), the governance token of the Splinterlands game, primarily for four related reasons that boost both earnings and influence within the ecosystem:
Rewards Multiplier: Staked SPS is the key factor in the game's current rewards system. Staking SPS provides a multiplier that significantly increases the amount of SPS earned from ranked battles and determines the number of daily and seasonal reward chests a player receives. Without staked SPS, earning decent rewards is impossible.
Staking Rewards: Stakers earn a passive income stream of additional SPS tokens that are distributed daily from a dedicated reward pool.
Governance: Staked SPS grants players voting power in the Splinterlands Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), allowing them to participate in voting on game development proposals and changes.
Additional Utility: Staked SPS is often required for participation in events, like specific Promo Card sales, and is utilized by those who own Validator Node Licenses.
So, with all these, I have only one point. These are not just 6 individuals who are constantly staking SPS. There are thousands of people doing so consistently. Please check my previous post for that info. In fact the bottom of top 2000 staked SPS is currently 49696 SPS. That is nearly 50K SPS. So there are 2000 people who are staking at least 50K SPS or more, and all the way up to 64M SPS. Clearly we believe in the Splinterlands project. We are putting money where our mouth is.
Yep, not selling one SPS, that drop you see I believe it was me buying SPS Validator license in the pre-sale for SPS. Other than that I am not un-staking SPS or Hive Power at all! If we get a blow off top like 50+ cent SPS I might take some off, but likely to put some of it back in after it goes back to earth :)
I always think that I have enough but then it is never enough
Nice post! While it's just a small sample size, it’s clear there are quite a few players doing this consistently over time.
Also interesting to see a noticeable uptick in June–July 2023—if I recall correctly, that lines up with the introduction of staking requirements to earn SPS, which likely influenced behavior.
Then again in June–July 2024, we saw the rollout of the Seasonal Pass system, particularly for Wild format, along with SPS multiplier changes. So that’s two key changes in back-to-back years that, at least for this sample size, seem to line up with the trends we're seeing.
@seattlea we definitely need to talk about why your line has such a steep uptrend though… (steeper then mine 🤣) What’s your secret?
You caught me, there were quite a few small purchases of SPS involved in that steep line ;)
That explains it, good job 😁
I think all those observations are correct. Since this spans upwards of 5 years now, this is a combination of many things and which when combined reveals our individual personalities!
It's this behavioral part that gets revealed from a plot is what always interests and intrigued me in statistics and data visualization.
You can't hide your behavior from a good plot! :)
When the interest percentage dropped low enough I stopped staking with the intention of selling the tokens that I was earning. I wasn't going to unstake, but I also wasn't going to stake anything new. Then the price of SPS also tanked and it became pointless to even try to sell it. I'm kind of in limbo right now.
SPS is speculative. Many of us are involved in this experiment at a deeper level than just profit or loss. So we are putting money in it like you do in a family business. It is not that the family business always makes money, but you are a part owner in the business, so whatever happens you are in it.
That is the way many of us feel about Splinterlands. I certainly do.
I used to feel that way, but I have gotten disillusioned as I have seen things play out. I'm still pretty active in it, but it's just not meeting my expectations. I'm guessing a lot of that has to do with the overall crypto market, but I still feel like they are pricing most people out of the game.
Yes, that is a popular opinion and I do not disagree. Aggy did his best to drive the value to the ground. I like the man, but he doesn't know business. However, that is in the past, and many of us are trying to revive the game from its past mistake.
One thing I will leave you, and see if you disagree. Splinterlands is still alive after 7 years. This is literally the older web 3 game that never stopped and didn't have a scandal (even many famous games on ETH, like Axie had to re-brand). We we are the survivor. That got to have some value and brand name appeal somewhere...
That is a good point. I just wish other people would see it. Then again, HIVE has a lot going for it in general that people seem to overlook. I have a lot of assets on WAX that are worthless with zero chance of ever recovering. At least Splinterlands has that slim chance.
Nice to see this data, thanks for selecting me and the tag. I did sell off a chunk of my SPS for hive, I'm trying to get to 10k HP soon. It's impressive to see how the others on here are growing too.
It's true, I am confident in the long term vision and committed to the hive ecosystem. Unfortunately I don't have the budget to keep up with modern in SPL, so I'm focusing my efforts growing on Hive. If and when we get a new set of reward cards, I'll look to buy or rent more SPS to increase glint earnings. I always try to max out the rewards cards for each set, that's probably my favorite thing about playing Splinterlands now since brawls have mostly died out.
Brawls are still my favorite thing, maybe you need to change to a different guild? Tier five brawls are very competitive and fun.
T5 is fun but not as competetive as it used to be. Many frays are filled with underpowered decks, or abandoned accounts. Plus many players have max gladius cards now, so the motivation isn't there to earn merits like before. We won our last two T5 brawls even with having a couple of players flee all battles.
As an example from this brawl. Another fairly sound win with one player fleeing all battles. Granted neither of the KoG guilds were in our group, but either way this would almost never be possible when guild battles were more active.
Everything shows up from a good plot.
Yes there are always many things to buy
Pretty awesome to see the times that I was actively buying, and the times (like now) that I'm having a nice growth only by playing. It was awesome when the price was at 1ct/SPS. I mainly got my SPS from other players back then, though. Even had a savings plan going with a buddy.
And yes, definitely confident in the long term success and fun proportion.
The plot shows you your behavior towards the game :)
That is the interesting part for me.
Interesting to see the data on token acquisition! Always appreciate the effort put into these plots. 👍
cheers!
Still far away from my target achievement
But i will follow u guys
Send love to you all
!LOLZ !ALIVE
A lot of us are adding for 5 years!
Salute to you guys. Vonak!
I remember I was thinking omg how will I ever get to 50k sps staked, which was the required amount for half way in to gold from memory, a couple of years later and I passed 150k already.
Splinterlands is awesome in so many ways!