It's CHAOS out there

I have been umming and ahhing about what I was going to do when the Splinterlands Chaos Legion packs went on presale - I just made it much simpler for myself!

This could be genius!!

Or very costly.

I have ~13000 SPS Staked, which gets me 3.3 VOUCHERS a day (at current percentage), which is around the 100 I need in order to qualify for the first bonus tier, to get 10% extra. In order to get enough vouchers to get the 100, I have to wait until the end of the voucher drop and then buy in "bulk" (100 is not many) to get what I am after.

This means I would have to have all of my SPS staked for the entire presale, otherwise I will fall short and not get the extra ten packs. This means that if SPS does happen to get some upward action, I can't take advantage of it, as there is a 7 day unstaking period.

Currently, the lowest ask for VOUCHER on the secondary market is 28 HIVE (21 dollars), which means that if buying and using, it will cost 25 dollars for a pack of CHAOS LEGION cards - Crazy!!!

So.... Instead of trying to work out all of the dynamics I did what I too often do in these kinds of circumstances.

FOMO'd

I had 3 vouchers from the first drop a few hours ago and then on Hive-Engine, bough 97 more at an average buy price of around 26 HIVE, which is a little over 2500 HIVE. Then, in Splinterlands, I purchased x100 packs and got the 10 bonus packs. This was my stake-based allocated quota for the month (all stake remaining equal), the difference being, I would have had to buy at the end. I also used SPS to purchase the packs, so that I got a 10% discount on the purchase price.

So now, I have all the packs I would have been able to get -

Now what?

Well, I am glad I rhetorically asked.

I sold 1000 SPS I had liquid for about 1100 HIVE, which gets about 45% of my VOUCHER purchase price back. On top of this, I started unstaking my SPS. This means that tomorrow, I will get 25% less vouchers, so instead of 3.3, I will get 2.47 and if I continue unstaking, next week I will get about 1.6 a day. At the end of the month, I will have about 40 VOUCHERs, which is 60 less than I would have had, but since I have my packs already, that is okay. I can also keep it staked and sell the vouchers for HIVE and use that to buy SPS back later too. I will also get (I believe) some SPS airdrop points for the 110 packs, so that brings back a little too.

I have options.

I suspect that SPS will drop somewhat after the end of the presale and perhaps during and so, I am hoping to offset today's obscene purchase by selling some SPS while others are still claiming vouchers. What this means though, is if other people do similar, the voucher prices could get far crazier, as people will be unstaking and getting less so they can sell their SPS, but looking to pick them up on the secondary market - which pushes prices of vouchers up a lot.

But, this also drops the price of SPS, which changes purchasing dynamics too. For example, I paid 402 SPS to get 100 packs, which also included a 10% discount (I was going to use credits, but I will use them to buy cards). However, if people start selling SPS in order to buy vouchers, the 10% sale for using SPS gets more expensive. If SPS was 45 cents, I would have needed about 800 to buy my packs. This SPS goes to the Splinterlands Team, so I don't think they are going to be dumping it daily (but who knows!).

So now, I will be able to sell my daily VOUCHERs (or save them and buy more packs) without having to worry about missing out on my quote. In fact, I can now go well above my quota and increase my chances of getting key cards, if I choose. This is something I considered doing anyway, so not much actually changes except, I no longer have to worry about the possibility of not getting vouchers - as I no longer need them. I think it is possible that toward the end of the presale, vouchers are going to be at a premium, as people look to increase their holdings in order to get to the next tier for discounts.

For example, If I was only getting 90 vouchers from my drop, I would be damn sure to buy another 10 in order to get the 10 "free" packs. However, if I wait til the end of the presale, everyone else is doing the same, so the prices might be far higher than now. So, I would be looking to buy when prices are lower or, systematically over the month to cost average those 10. For me to get an extra ten in the drop however, I would have to increase my SPS stake by 11% (about 1200 SPS) which would cost me about 1050 dollars and, it would mean locking it up from today to get them. 10 vouchers today though, cost 200 dollars, but of course, one then doesn't have the SPS, which could go higher, or it could drop.

The dynamics of the tokenization of just this presale is intense and is going to be quite stressful for many people trying to maximize. At least in this digital world, I don't need to concern myself with maximization, so I can play the game and afford to "lose", knowing that I am already well in the black based on my capital investments.

In the time I have written this, the volume has doubled and the price of vouchers has moved from 19.80 to almost 23 dollars each. This means that if it keeps going in this direction or even stays here, my move is warranted, however, I suspect there is going to be some pretty severe volatility over the coming weeks, as people demand and supply all of the various tokens in play, as well as start purchasing their packs in larger lots.

Yes, this move might backfire on me financially, but I don't think it can end up being that bad that I will cry about it much. For now however, I have the same amount of packs that an account with 400,000 SPS staked could have (in their first day) and they are secured away in my inventory, waiting to be opened when the open sale goes live. Who knows, perhaps I will get lucky (doubtful) and score some decent cards to warrant this move, but I really, really hope that I will at least get some promo cards out of it, as the "guarantee" is statistical as far as I know, not set in stone. That is part of the game though :)

So, how are you playing the "World of Splinterlands Tokenization" game?

Are you buying vouchers, selling SPS, selling vouchers, buying with DEC, Credits or SPS, looking to up to a higher tier, waiting til the open sale. Or, don't GAF at all?

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]