Analysing the Splinterlands Bear Market

in LeoFinance3 years ago

Hopefully that title didn’t trigger you, but if it did then I apologise. I am still long term bullish on Splinterlands – I have come to view it as a pretty impressive game in its own right and the fact that it is blockchain based with trade-able NFTs puts it front and centre of the blockchain gaming revolution that I’ve been expecting will explode over the coming years. But as with anything crypto-related there are ups and downs and I’m just calling it how I see it – Splinterlands is having a bit of a down cycle at the moment.

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The reason why? Well I can only speculate but I think that the Chaos Legion launch has flooded the asset market a little bit and needs some time for the existing player base to absorb all those extra cards. The metagame is currently evolving as players figure out what new cards they want to use and what old ones maybe aren’t so unique or valuable any more. For any hard core gamer this is still a pretty exciting time and it’s important for games not to stagnate. As such, I do applaud the game developers so don’t take this post as criticism, but cold hard analysis is unemotional so we need to take the rose coloured glasses off.

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The first thing I wanted to point out is that the general sale for Chaos Legion Packs is underway and while 6.5 million packs have been sold already, there is still almost 8.5 million still to hit the market. This is probably good news as with any new release you have initial hype and a lot of existing players diving in to scoop up those early packs….and we’ve seen that phase play out. Now we have a slower grind while the remaining 8.5 million sell at a more gradual pace. Players who want to bolster their decks are likely going to be a lot better off buying cards directly off the market for a while while all that extra card supply gets soaked up. That means at the moment those Chaos Legion cards are probably selling cheap on the open market and if they haven’t bottomed out yet they probably aren’t far off. I wouldn’t expect too many Chaos Legion Packs to sell until individual card prices that come out of those packs start to recover a bit.


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The next thing I wanted to look at is the SPS token price. It’s probably down more than 80% from its peaks in September 2021 and still looks to be trending down. I’ve been selling off my SPS airdrops regularly up until this point but it’s starting to get to that point where I am getting comfortable that the hype has well and truly worn off. While I’m not yet a buyer of SPS, I’ve started staking my airdropped SPS as once again – I think the bottom is probably not too far off and I’ll be looking for signs of a bottom over the next few months before starting to accumulate.

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Finally I wanted to mention the rental market briefly. I haven’t been renting cards out for long and statistics for the rental market can be harder to find, but it looks to be a little bit depressed at the moment also. Some of the new Chaos cards seem to be getting a decent APR on the rental market – presumably as existing players like to “try before they buy” as that would be smart while the new metagame takes shape. But many of the older cards APR are dropping below the 12% that can be earned just by putting Hive Backed Dollars (HBD) into Savings so that might also create some selling pressure on those older cards in the short term.


Overall I am still bullish on Splinterlands, but I’m a realist and the market needs some time to digest the recent supply boom and consolidate a little bit before it can go forward again. It’s a good time to be patient and also to scoop up those bargains at the low prices, so that’s what I’m trying to do. Good luck to you if you’re in the market for anything Splinterlands related!

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Sober and measured.
I thought there'd be more appetite to stockpile SPS, but I'm starting to understand long term governance isn't shiny and exciting for a lot of people :)
Just means I get more SPS when I sell my vouchers, so I'm not crazy upset about it.
Naturally I look forward to hearing the helpless bleating whales have all the power a few years from now.

I'm not exactly sure how the governance framework is supposed to work, but I'll probably look more deeply into it before actively buying any SPS. Most people just seem to talk about the crazy APR they were getting. I suspect the slide in APR may be the real reason for the recent slide in the SPS price.

oh its definitely coming, and many of the people who will complain will probably have sold many sps along the way i will bet.

As has been pointed out to me by other posters in the past, a bear market isn't always a bad thing, it's certainly a necessary process if valuations are to be stabilized, though.

For me, this bear market represents the best opportunity I've had since starting Splinterlands to buy-in. "Buy the dip" isn't just a memey saying, it's how you identify good entry prices. With what we know about lands, this dip could easily turn into a massive rip when players put two and two together and math out what's required to max their lands.

!1UP

Absolutely. Any opportunity to buy low should be taken.

I'm pretty much new to this game and even I realize the huge quantity of cards flooding this market. Despite that, I finally have some skin in this game.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

Congrats. Are you playing?

Not yet.
But thanks to a generous, The Alliance Halloween party host I got a beginner's boost.

🙂 Too hard to make the time to play since joining #ladiesofhive

There is always a major supply shock whenever a new set is released into the wild. This one is also much larger in scope. In the last month, more cards have entered the ecosystem than in the entire run of the game.

Do you think the flood is over? Or slowing?

I agree, but also consider this shock timeline should be similar to any other previous given set release, as you could say the same about the number of new users enetering the ecosystem... and not just in the last month.

Not a player myself but I´m also very bullish and optimistic about this game. It has brought an incredible number of people "from the outside of Hive" to our chain and I am sure many more will join in future. Cannot wait to see if Ragnarok will also be so popular :)

After getting 4oo packs im just picking up singles to enhance my deck.

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You have received a 1UP from @entrepidus!


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