Honestly I love Splinterlands and I've been one of those people that have been in it for the long haul. Putting money in and never taking it out. Which honestly looking back I should have! But that's hindsight and of course I've been looking to the future to of course sell out at least some to recover expenses I've put into it at least. So that's my mindset on the whole thing and figured I would put that out front and center.
Now we all know Splinterlands ran into some major issues about I guess it's been almost three years now or at least two and the restructure went well. However, I'm seeing some rather disturbing things as of late which are making me feel like this is all just slowly dying and we are almost at a breaking point once again.
This breaking point isn't as drastic as the last one but it's enough that it's a constant drag on everything and there's very little to tap into.
I also want to start this out by me writing as a concerned player and investor and not as someone sour or just out for revenge. I'm saying this things so the hard talks can happen, the changes can be made before it's too late.
Asset Prices
The most telling tail of this all I believe can come down to asset prices. Everything and at the core of it DEC peg and SPS value.
DEC peg still has not happened and it looks like it never will. With another massive 1.2 million dollar payout going to the company that will be injected back into the markets it's very clear that the peg for DEC wont be happening any time soon.
This also means the value of SPS wont be moving including the fact that even more printing is going to happen for staking rewards.
I for one agree that there should be staking rewards however I believe everyone would still be fine if you reduced the inflation of them from a 10% apr to something like 5% - 7% it's still a healthy APR and would double the length of time that SPS would be earned from staking rewards. This would also reduce the new supply by a small amount which could help constantly bump prices a bit. A big issue I see happening is way too much being given out for "free". Or change it in a way that those holding staked SPS get 1% of the fees across the entire marketplace could be another option that doesn't negatively effect the economy.
We also see this in card prices. My cards are worth NOTHING. The so called holding older cards would become more valuable because of land is totally out the window including land prices returning to levels they sold at 5 years ago!
If you look at the entire ecosystem right now we are to the point where all value from other areas like land and cards has been completely drained.
The FlyWheel
There's been so much talk and for so long about the flywheel and it's never really happened. Every time it's just about to start or runs for a few hours we get a complete slap in the face which mainly comes from the DAO funds near millions back into the company.
I honestly feel like if we don't soon start to get values injected back into card assets, land etc that people are going to get tired of it and things are really going to start crashing down to the point of no return.
The Bull Run
I find it funny that all this talk about the bull run was going to fix a lot of issues. Well I hate to break it to you but we went from a $40,000 BTC price to $110,000 BTC and so ZERO change. If anything SPS values fell during this time. So to say we are waiting on a bull run is complete garbage to me at this point and you shouldn't rely on a bull run to get yourself into the positive. There's zero reason that Splinterlands can't be profitable right now today with what it has and generate values back into the SPS token etc via market and exchange fees from land assets, cards etc.
LAND
Land to this day still is a slow hardly moving beast. What was sold to us nearly 5 years ago has returned to the same value it cost us and now actually costs many of us more money to generate and run it compared to it actually making anything.
The team needs to seriously refocus once again and start making hard choices.
Things like reducing the inflation of SPS from 10% APR on staking to like 8%, 7% or even 5% you can start small and make moves from there.
DAO
The DAO voting is still a mess. Coming down to a simple yes or no to rather complex or multi level questions that should be happening.
For example one of the most recent ones asking the the LP pool SPS should be added into the emissions of staking rewards for SPS holders. This would bring us to near 2026 end of which at that time once again we will be back in this spot.
The real question should be should the LP pool SPS that is no longer being used be used for SPS staking rewards. Yes or No.
If yes then how long should it be 1 year (seems like the current) 2 years or 3 years. My vote would be 2-3 years and spread it out over a longer period of time with less inflation.
One of the biggest issues with ALL of these types of games, DeFi etc is there's no emissions changes. When markets slow down and things are slow the inflation of the token should be reduced. When things heat up and there's lots of trading going on etc then inflation can be increased a bit. In honest all of these platforms are like mini FEDs that should be changing inflation based on activity levels to keep a well balanced system and not a set once and forget or constantly keep increasing while things are slow further putting negative pressure on the assets.
I really feel like they have left long time investors in the dust with most of our alpha, beta, and other cards being pretty much worthless.
The way the game is set doesn't really favour any cards holding value, given everything is relegated to a basically bot only mode after some time. Land itself won't value cards that much, and I would say most players (the few we have) ate here because they want a tcg and not a simcity style game. On top of it, removing the leagues was and is a disaster for any new player experience... and without attracting new players and current players bleeding out, yep: your title does have a point. As usual, would love to be proven wrong!
Would love to be proven wrong as well but it just feels like we are on track to a slow death at the moment and the lifeline is running thin.
I burned all my cards a couple of months ago and moved the funds into much better assets that I had left after the market value of all my cards went to crap.
I have the same concerns as you. As far as the flywheel, I believe the missing component is there are not enough true DEC sinks to hold up the second half of the flywheel (demand for DEC). If we had more things that players WANT to spend DEC on; like cosmetics instead of taxes, I think we would see a positive response in token prices.
On the positive side, I think Dave is doing a fantastic job since becoming COO and is moving things in the right direction.
Thank you for the compliment @unitmaster!
You're welcome! Didn't think you would see that but I'm glad you're reading the post. Enjoyed hearing you on @thepeoplesguild podcast recently!
I try to read as much as I can so that I can help to address misperceptions, hear constructive feedback, and of course to find great ideas that we can implement!
Thank you again UM for being positive, and I will say its pretty easy to have fun with the JimmyJangles vibe they put on. BAM! :)
The one thing I would say that is not suffering in the Splinterland ecosystem, are the Dev Salaries which kind of feel like the true priority #1. All the efforts now to bring in new players like Frontiers mode with tradable card rewards, the new miniset with an arbitrary SPS Value in an attempt to pump the price, Survival Mode, new Land-cards,... all kind of feel short-term gain -> long-term pain measures.
Reducing the SPS Staking rewards would be a good first step.
I'd agree with this. Land was suppose to give older cards more value by being able to do more on lands. Instead now we are getting land cards. They just keep inflating everything to the point where everything older is now worth nearly nothing after lying to us who heavily invested and support the game all of these years. It honestly feels like a slap in the face.
Can you demonstrate that older cards don't have value?
Because I am looking to buy older cards and I can't find them. I am not even talking about alpha or beta cards, I am simply talking about max GFL if CL set. They have 10K PP, right? The cheapest one is $103 and there are 2 max available. I can’t even fill one land plot with that and I have 400 plus plots to fill.
Please tell me how :
$100 for a max GFL CL is no value?
Also please explain can I buy 2000 max GFL for $100 each?
Only 32% of the land is currently in use. I argue it is underused because there are no cards to put in at a reasonable price.
Please explain and point the flaw in my argument.
No value is not true they have value but it's dropped considerable. Bull run assets where valued at over $150,000. Fell to $70,000 around 2023-2024 and now are worth around $11,000 which I would say is about break even. So any further fall would mean cards are now an expense instead of holding or increasing in any kind of value. This is also on top of the accumulation of new cards.
Land most likely is under utilized I know for me because of trying to get enough DEC to get the lands operational. It's not cheap to bring a single plot online and is 3x the cost to bring online compared to the cost of buying it in the first place. Value extracted from land also feels extremely low and after fees etc it's really hard to determine if you're even profitable or could be profitable swapping for all the other resources you need to claim research and SPS now.
I wish there was more transparency in terms of how much in fees are being collected from swaps like this and where those fees go etc.
So who decides if $150K or $15K, I don’t exactly know which exact asset you are talking about, but which one is fair value?
I am going to argue that current price is closer to fair value compared to any inflated prices people bought in 2021. I am not going to make my financial decision based on others irrational exuberance, am I?
ADBE, adobe is still a good company. If people bought ADBE stock at $700 do I cry for them? Does the market care if I cry for them? Today ABBE trading for $350. It is still overpriced in my opinion but certainly closer to fair value today compared to $700.
I own a a lot of Splinterlands assets and 18M SPS. There are people who owns way more than I do. I am comfortable owning these assets and I am looking to buy a lot more. I am confident with the management transparency as well. Rarely any publicity traded company is this transparent.
All good points. The assets I bought are most likely break even at this point as I started back in Beta days but have been buying ever since. I'd just like to start seeing indicatives to start building value back into these assets. I understand the company needs money to run but why does it feel like it always comes from inflating more assets instead of building systems. Fees generated can help either offset company expenses or kick back into values of SPS for example. To me it feels like all we are seeing is a exit of funds and it's gotten to the point where that exit of funds has now destroyed everything that once had some value, cards, SPS, DEC, Land. All feel like they continue to depreciate instead of hold or increase in any kind of value. My point here is we need to start building smarter systems that can build DAO, Company and player values. There's really no reason why the DAO can't make good investments and continue to build value through APRs, fees and rather safe methods of yields which can then be put towards company expenses or SPS/DEC to at least stabilize DEC or just put value into SPS.
There were and are exit of funds. But why would that be only the fault of the company?
In a decentralized system, players are co-owners. I blame the players equally if not more than the company for value destruction. Most people involved with hive economy are value extractors. If you want to blame someone, blame the eternally poor hive user base! Pardon my French!
I don't see cost/scarcity to fill X Plots for resources as an issue but a welcomed design. I would argue one person/ average player shouldn't be able to do what you are attempting. Managing/ resourcing 400 plots should be too time consuming and costly for most individuals to accomplish. Similar as to attaining and/or developing 400 plots of land in brick and mortar world would be too much for most individuals. Most who have as much got in early. Such is the benefit of getting in early.
Large plot owners might welcome cheaper workers. However Cheaper workers devalue the workers already available. Cheaper workers devalue the mined contents. We want scarcity. We want too many plots and not enough workers. Supply and demand then increases values of the workers (card packs) which then increases the value of the mined contents which in turn increases the value of land. I welcome land owners fighting over workers. Less is more has been a proven model in SPL.
The game starts with the cards. Card inflation/ devaluation isn't enticing anyone to invest in and hold sets. This trickles to card packs as well. Not that SPL can completely control such as funds are needed to run the business side and markets will market. Of course an influx of players will remedy all of this. I figured this a good as a spot as any to type this out on since you are a land baron and given the context of the post. All the best with your assets.
Why is land 32% full after years of launching?
How can we change that?
There could be multiple reasons that come to mind when pondering such a question but the reasons are only that, just a thought. One thought being: we are seeing the result of how many players we had when land was being designed and expected to have in the future (which is now) vs. how many we actually have today. I don't view it as a big issue though. With the assumption we gain more players comes more prospectors.
I'll take a crack at answering.
() More players joining the SPL universe that want to participate in land.
() Green Candles, people seem to participate more when things are green.
I like the above 1% idea. As for SPS staking, end of 2026 isn't long away. I'd be for dropping the APR in favor of extending the lifespan of SPS staking. Looking at the usd sale value and movement of the OG cards its difficult to justify purchasing new sets out the gate for the sole purpose of holding onto them with a death-grip when with patience one can purchase from market at more favorable times. Thats not to say there isn't reasons to purchase new sets as there are plenty reasons to do so. That being said I have faith in the SPL team to keep the ship floating and that is by far what is needed the most. I made the suggestion of alternating OG sets in and out of modern play every 1-3 months. I think doing so has the potential to bring many benefits.
Would provide value to holding the token. There's a lot they could be doing but the main focus still seems to just be sell more and more and not really build the economy to the point where fees would replace or greatly replace all the selling of new packs. The selling of new packs should fuel the economy and rewards for that season and beyond.
just wait to the bear market, clearly Hive being 30% below its lowest bottom in 2022 bear market bottom last cycle, while everything else (99%) though not at 2021 All Time Highs (besides Bitcoin mostly) the alts are mostly up from there 2022 lows by 500% on average . While Hive is below it’s. This is beyond VS Bitcoin. It’s Hive being in a full on bear market while the space overall is up from last bear bottom and in bull run. This is going to mean we will definitely go below the 2024 bottom of .14 cents (8/4/25) in 2026/2027, I’d guess much lower. Hold on tight! !PIZZA !ALIVE
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