As a long term player and investor of the Splinterlands Ecosystem, I’ve seen it Boom and Bust a couple of times now already. I remember back in about 2019 or early 2020 when the sentiment was terrible, there was a lot of people unhappy about the glut of Untamed Edition cards flooding the market and suppressing prices. It was a great time to buy because the ecosystem came roaring back to life in 2021...but is history really likely to repeat?
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Sentiment around Splinterlands today is probably just as bad as it was back then. It might even be worse. We’ve had the big bear market in crypto and while crypto has recovered somewhat – Splinterlands (and HIVE) hasn’t. We’ve had Riftwatchers and now a Rebellion Edition released while the ongoing glut of Chaos Legion continues to bleed valuation. An early release of Land Functionality sparked a little bit of excitement for a while but that hype seems to have blown off too. Checking the DApp Radar today it looks like Splinterlands has dropped to #27 on the game rankings...when it was previously at #1.
So what are we looking at here? Are there some Die-hards still clinging on to the hope that things are going to bounce soon, or are the rumours about big whales desperate to dump what holdings they have left true? As a contrarian I don’t like to sell low and it sure looks low now. I like to BUY when prices are low, but they could always go lower and it’s never smart to try and catch a falling knife.
I still have some land that I need to get productive and have been Dollar-Cost-Averaging to buy the workers I need, but it does feel a bit like throwing good money after bad. Maybe that’s a good sign, because feelings tend to dominate rationality at market extremes. I would probably be more confident if there was a pending functionality enhancement rather than just a new token or a new card edition being released. These just seem like cash grabs to keep the development team afloat while older players fall behind. Changing reward structures or ranking systems just seems like shifting deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.
My own recent strategy has been to get the land I own productive and keep the assets I’ve got earning by playing Brawls and Ranked. I set a Goal to do that and I’ll see it through so that probably means I’ve got another couple hundred USD worth of value to tip in, but after that I think I’ll be done on this cycle. For better or worse. I believe an uptick is well overdue so if we don’t get a recovery in the next 12 months it’s probably going to be a write-off because the ecosystem appears to just be bleeding players and value right now. That can’t go on for another year without a complete loss of confidence.
What about you? Has Splinterlands become a Money Pit? Perhaps it always was? Is there anyone out there still bullish and buying?