Hello everybody, I hope everybody is having a tremendous Tuesday! Today I wanted to go over an old investing adage. Time in the market versus timing the market. Any investor that has had any skin in the game will tell you that time in the market will always beat out timing the market. What exactly do I mean? Well, time in the market is essentially how long you have been invested in a market, asset, or something of the kind. Timing the market is trying to pick an opportune entry point to enter a position where you will see the most potential gains.
Why Time In The Market?
If you look at broad market ETF's you will notice one pattern, on a long enough time frame they always trend up if they have been around for long enough. Investing is said to be a vehicle in which the patient reap the rewards of the impatient. For every bear exiting a position there is a bull entering a position. This is not to say that every investment you make will always go up though, do not mistake my words. When relating to Splinterlands I believe the time in the market is the game to play. You can make multiple income streams off of your Splinterlands cards. Not only can they appreciate in value, but you can also rent them out for a good annualized return and also gain airdrop points for the burn value of them. Because of this, on a long enough time frame (Given that Splinterlands survives and continues to have a healthy economy) the asset has the potential to pay for itself. Not only can this asset pay for itself but you can sell it back at a later time to regain even more value! Patience is one of the most important tools you must have when investing, I believe especially in the Splinterlands economy.
If you look at the prices for older sets you can really see the capital appreciation potential this game has to offer. In it's short lifespan of just over 3 years it has gone from selling cards in packs for $2 to having cards being resold for price tags of $50000 on the secondary market. Anybody has had conviction from early on in Splinterlands has certainly made themselves a handsome bag and has repaid their initial investment over many times. Even in this modern economy you can buy reward cards and have them pay themselves off in a little over 100 days. At an investing standpoint 100 days is actually a quite short investment window indeed. Past gains are no indication of future gains, but if Splinterlands can continue to grow as it once did then I believe that the past gains could definitely repeat themselves. Even if we don't see growth on that scale I can see some very handsome returns if you can play your cards right.
Case For Timing The Market
It is not to say that there is no money to be made in timing the market in Splinterlands. If you are patient, diligent, and know the market, you can certainly make money flipping cards. I would not advise this to newer investors and players as we are in a bear market and you could get burned easily. There are also a lot of low liquidity cards that look like they are priced nicely but are indeed a bull trap so to speak. If you have an appetite for risk you could definitely try timing the market, but know the potential for downside is much larger than simply buying and HODL'ing. There is also the scenario you remove too much equity from the market and miss a run up, or suffer a drop in the price of DEC that could hurt you as well.
**Conclusion **
I would go for the time in the market approach, especially for newer players. Those who have HODL'd before us have done well for themselves, and you can see that they are trying to repeat their success with the newer sets. I for one believe in Splinterlands heavily and am hoping to repeat their success with them. Thank you everybody that took the time to read this and I hope you all have a Splinterific day!
Giveaway
I would like to congratulate 
Today I will be giving away a rare exploding rats! All you have to do to participate is leave a comment down below! It is not required but I really do appreciate all of your upvotes, PIZZA, LUV, LOLZ, and all the other tip tokens! I'm a Dad that is the sole provider and I'm trying to make a bit more money from my cypto ventures to help out and every little bit really does help.
Tag List if you would like removed please say so in the comments.
