I am a firm believer that SPS will continue to rise in both the short term 1 to 3 months, and in the long term 6 to 12 months. I can see SPS going upwards of $0.50 cents or higher within this next year without the need for a broader market crypto bull run!
SPS hit a low at about 4 cents in July, and has since been on an upward trend. This is only the start! There are still major catalysts coming into play in the next few months that will continue to drive value in SPS.
With little to no continuous SPS token utility and massive inflation from investor distributions and airdrops, it made sense that the token value went from close to 90 cents in Oct of 2021, to hitting a low of 4 cents in July of 2022. Not only were there sell pressures from token inflation, but the broader crypto market was also in bear mode.
My sentiments towards SPS during this time had been bearish - only purchasing and staking enough SPS to participate in tournaments on a casual basis. Recently, though, with the roadmap laid out by the Splinterlands team, I have definitely shifted to a bullish outlook for SPS!
Not only did I purchase a node license, but I have also picked up over 100,000 SPS tokens! In this video, I'll highlight my 4 reasons why I expect a significant rise in SPS value over the course of the next 6 months!
Liquidity Pools
First up, and the reason most fresh on people's minds is the Liquidity Pools! The liquidity pools have been and are currently offering insane APRs. I fully expect the APRs to go down as they continue to dilute, but I think this will be over the course of months. There's enough different pools out there, plus enough incentive that PLENTY of SPS will be needed to dilute the pool.
Let's take one pool for example - the Wrapped ETH and SPS pool. At the time of this recording, the pool is providing around a 120% APR, or a 225% APY if compounded weekly. That is an insane APY!
Let's just say, for example, the equilibrium point at which players like you and I stop adding to liquidity pools is when the APR reaches 70% or less. At this point, many players may diversify into other assets such as cards for rentals or node licenses.
In order for the APR of the Wrapped ETH SPS pool to reach that level, the pool will have to grow approximately $500K in value, or $250K in SPS and $250K in Wrapped ETH! Multiply that by the number of pools offered, and it's quite a lot of buy pressure on the token!
We've already seen this buy pressure on SPS with the recent doubling from the 4-cent lows, but should continue to see price pressure at least until APRs drop below 70%
Ranked Battle Rewards
Reason #2 is SPS ranked battle rewards! While you might think that this means MORE SPS being distributed, there's also a need for players to acquire SPS in the short term in order to stake it to EARN SPS. While full details have not been released, the team has hinted multiple times that, in order to earn SPS rewards in ranked battle play, you will HAVE to have SPS staked. This means that a casual player, such as myself, will suddenly have a reason to pick up a bag of SPS so that I can be earning the max SPS rewards possible with ranked battle play!
Pure speculation, but I would imagine the higher the level of play, the more SPS staked a player needs in order to maximize their earnings. This also has implications on bots and those that run bot farms!
Imagine if the team implements a simple 1000 SPS staking requirement for the lowest level of play, multiply that by 100K daily active users, and that's 1 Million SPS staked as the BARE MINIMUM. I would expect a number MUCH higher than that.
I also like the way ranked battle rewards will be distributed. The team has said that SPS rewards will likely be distributed as staked SPS, which will encourage players to hold their SPS vs. immediately converting it to fiat.
Riftwatchers Release
NUMBER 3, and personally the one I am the most excited about, is RIFTWATCHERS! We already know that there will be 3 million packs released, with each pack costing $5 payable only by SPS!
From the hype around riftwatchers, especially around the number of different cards in this set, I can imagine riftwatchers selling out within the first week of general sale release!
Let's do some math here - that's fifteen MILLION dollars of buy pressure on SPS! We saw this type of pressure when nodes released, we saw this pressure when Liquidity pools were introduced, and I'm expecting that we see this again. I believe that rather than re-allocating already-owned SPS, many players will BUY more SPS to spend on Riftwatchers.
With how lucrative liquidity pools currently are, I do not see many players removing their position in liquidity pools to fund riftwatchers.
Yabamatt announced at the last townhall that presale will LIKELY start at the end of August or possibly early september, so this is definitely a big short term buy pressure on SPS tokens!
Genesis League Soccer
Last, but certainly not least is the announcement of Genesis League Soccer. This was a HUGE announcement by the team at the townhall. The partnership and excitement around this expansion shows how big of a vision Aggroed, Yabamatt, and the team have. I know there seemed to be mixed feelings about the announcement, but I personally think it's a REALLY-BIG-DEAL. I think that the team knows how to create a successful game, and is extremely well-versed in tokenomics. With the team's experience, I think that this game is going to blow folks away. It even has the possibility to grow way bigger than Splinterlands will ever be.
While the details are still to be determined in a white-paper, Yabamatt DID say that SPS holders and/or stakers will for sure be airdropped tokens or NFTs. I have a feeling that a lot of people, especially some of the newer players, will want to be part of starting something new. Newer players like myself feel like we missed out on the "genesis" of Splinterlands, and will for sure be participating in the release of Genesis League Soccer. The fact that the team is tying SPS utility to the new game makes me feel confident that Aggroed, Yabamatt, and team won't just "forget about Splinterlands" to move on to something bigger and better. The team understands their roots and want to continue building the community.
Conclusion
There we have it!! My 4 reasons to why I recently became extremely bullish on SPS! What are your thoughts?? Where are you on the bear to bull spectrum for SPS? Have you bought a bunch recently, or sold a bunch? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! I would love to continue this conversation!
That's it for this week fam! I hope this postadded value to your Splinterlands journey! If it did, I would greatly appreciate a follow on PEAK-D or a like & subscribe on YouTube! Hope to see you in around the game!
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Financial Disclosure
As always, this is NOT financial advice. These are my own opinions and how I plan to allocate my crypto portfolio, and THAT'S IT!!