If you have not heard last season the rental market in Splinterlands was on fire. People who were lending out cards were renting them out at extremely high rates, some as high as 300% ROI. Although since then the rental market has drop significantly, it is still a operating and useful market to navigate and use for all players. Certain cards that are simply too expensive at upfront price can be rented at a daily rate at much lower prices. This way upfront cost is reduced to zero while players only pay what they can for the time they want in renting a specific card. Although the rental market is far from perfect it is better today than where it was. In this post we talk about how the rental market in Splinterlands current stands and what it its potential to drive the game to new all time high evaluations.
Rent or Not Rent? That is the question
Last season a day before end of season I manage to rent out my Beta Chromatic Dragon max level card for a whooping 400 DEC / Day. The rental was only 24 hours but still in $ terms that was close to $2 a day.
Presently in the rental market the lowest rental price for the same card is 17.5 DEC / day. Yes that is $0.113 / day to rent out a max level Chromatic Dragon. In my opinion if someone wants to test run this card that is a steal.
Rental cards % return on investment has been in the extreme for the days leading up to end of season. Now that a new season has begun and we are a couple days into it I can see in the rental market that a lot more cards at higher levels are being rented out at similar rates as low as Chromatic Dragon, a rate of slightly above 3% ROI. For that kind of rate it would take 33 years to pay off the value of the card, which does not sound that all enticing to rent out.
However a few factors comes into play when renting out cards. For one players who lend out cards are receiving a passive income stream. This income stream can rise and fall based on the circumstances of the game such as what we saw during last season. So lenders still can potentially increase their rental rates prior to end of season to hopefully earn more or maintain low rates ensuring their cards best chances of being rented out.
Buy & Sell Market and Lend & Rent Market
NFTs having a passive income to them is rarely heard of these days. Yet a lot of crypto enthusiasts are actively trading NFTs. To know that Splinterlands offers a market to lend and rent NFTs makes it one of the first ever sets of NFTs that can earn passive income. This shift into players holding their assets longer since it can potentially earn more just by holding, and can be used in game by the owners themselves.
For the past two months Splinterlands market cap soared. New players were coming in droves and snatching up cards in the open market in hopes of collecting a competitive deck and playing to earn more wealth. While the attention in Splinterlands was to buy and sell cards the rental market was not mentioned as much. This is where I believe Splinterland's next big uptick in evaluation will come into play.
The reality Splinterlands faces currently is the lack of cards distributed among all active players. There are around 7.1 million cards currently in circulation and although it increases daily there is also over 100k of active users who have bought the initial buy in to the game, purchased a spell book players. Bottom line there needs to be more cards to be used by active players. Yet all official card packs are sold out. So in the open market the card packs are being sold at higher rates than originally purchased. The bottle neck of not having enough cards and increasing price of the booster packs is where the rental market can resolve.
Players that do not have large sum of crypto or wealth to invest in Splinterlands still have an opportunity to succeed and thrive in the game. With the rental market as where it stands today there are plenty of cards that players can rent on the low end and still earn a very good daily return. With a little luck and skills players can earn a lot of daily rewards through quests and DEC through battle wins. The higher the levels of summoners and monsters the potential of higher league wins which results in even more earnings.
Although I have not a detail example of it being a positive investment for renters I can say that Splinterlands is one of the only games currently that has such a rental market to begin with. It is a market that allows players to have access to the games best features without having to pay a high upfront cost to participate. The opportunity to earn more with less is there and players can seek it by going through the rental markets to find the best rental prices possible while actively playing to earn in game. Mean while owners of the cards maintain value of the cards because they stay relevant to the game because they are being used and earn a passive income that is really unheard of in today's NFT market.
Final words I would like to show the current status of daily total $ traded in Splinterlands.
A remarkable +$350k of currency in exchange for some Splinterlands cards. This is amazing in part that the cards not only are holding up value but are in high demand for the value that currently are listed at. The rental market is one of the reasons it is making this kind of support in card prices that no one is mentioning. On top of all this is that currently there are: Active Rentals: 323,110 / $20,482 daily amount
The cards total market cap stands above $120 million while the rental market is only a meager $20k. Card prices may likely maintain their value if not continue to soar as the potential rental market is just up and coming. Again note currently there is only slightly 323k cards being rented out of the more than 7 million in circulation with a total revenue of slightly over $20k. Thats not even 10% of all cards in circulation. When players realize the rental market and its potential it will give Splinterlands another massive boost in evaluation for sure.
Until next time thanks for reading!!!
If you are interested to learn more about Splinterlands please go through some of my other posts. Order is from newest to oldest posts:
All You Want To Know About Reward Chests
Helpful Links for New and Veteran Players
Splinterlands Good Cards To Own
Splinterlands Rentals from a Lender Perspective
I have plenty of other cards for rent! Just go on peakmonsters and check out the market place and if you are curious what I offer here is a link:
If You have yet to take part in playing this great game called Splinterlands please click on my referral link. It is free but in order to earn real assets such as cards and token you would have to invest in a starter deck or purchase game cards. Join the discord to learn more. Good luck!