Splinterlands - Is this really happening? Diamond splinter hands finally paying off.

Hi everyone,

It has been quite a while since I have written anything about Splinterlands, mainly because I felt that project was kind of moving sideways, card prices did not move a lot and I did not feel particularly excited about any of the new developments. I mean, overall it was fine and the whole project even survived the three year long bear market, but excited, not really.

In this fast moving crypto world, the development of Splinterlands can feel kind of slow. Other projects are popping up left and right and they all seem to gain instant traction and some even have huge instant returns. However, if you look these projects a bit deeper, none of them offer all of what Splinterlands is already offering, a functioning exciting fast paced game on the blockchain with self-owned assets, which are sellable on an in-game market. Tournaments, airdrops, rentable cards, ranked seasons, different leagues, reward chests at the end of each season, collabs with other blockchains and very recently guild brawls. And, the most exciting part for this year is still to come; the land expansion. This will make this game even more complete and turn a part of the game into a gamified defi system, which I personally am very excited about. All of that in itself should make this game explode during a crypto bull market right? And yet, it felt like it just was not going to happen for Splinterlands.

Until, a few days ago.

I am a very early investor and would probably be classified as one of the whales on Splinterlands; I own multiple accounts, started playing in june 2018 and I still really love to play the game after all this time.

Actually, it all started about a week ago, when I noticed some extra DEC (Dark Energy Crystals) in my account and was not really sure where it all came from. Toocurious is my main playing account and I normally don't sell anything on there. Turns out I had forgotten about a couple of Alpha gold cards, promo cards and a beta legendary summoners I had put on there for a price that was, to say the least at the high side of the selling spectrum (especially compared to the other cards on the market way back when).

I apparently sold two promo cards for 80k DEC:

I was like, wow, those sold? They are not even goldfoil and 'only' epic cards. What is happening? This must be a one time thing, I said to myself, but after that quite a few other cards sold.

The alpha goblin shaman is my 'Hive account@mattclarcke flesh golem', in the very early days I tried to many of them as possible, hoping that one day that decision would pay off. And it seems that day has come. I think I bought a lot of them for under 2 USD, so we are talking about a 10x profit over 3 years, in crypto terms that might not be that impressive, but I have a feeling this is just the start.

A bit later this happened:

I sold an alpha rexxie for 25 USD, which I bought for around 1 USD, meaning a 25x return.

And then this happened

This might also seem not as exciting, but these are simple common cards, they were a part of the first Kickstarter deal a couple of years ago and I remember putting them on the market to see if they would ever sell at this price (I have quite a big stack of them left). Looking at the alpha market at the moment and the total supply of these, this price could even be looked at as bargain. However, as in any market, nothing is worth what it is until it is sold, so I am glad these were bought up.

What does this mean?

Like the founders of this game (Hive account@aggroed and Hive account@yabapmatt) have said from the start, scarcity is a very important concept in gaming (and life). Besides that, the word NFT has become immensely popular, so people are looking at these early editions as investments, not necessarily to play with them, but to resell them at a later date to take hopefully take profit. Of course some players might be still levelling up their cards so the card gains abilities and become playable in their deck, but like I said, I also think there are some people with financial motives behind these latest sales, creating a very thin market. Look at the angel of light for example, only two are left on the market.

What to do now?

I always promised myself to sell more cards during the next Splinterlands bull run, but are we at the height of it yet? The market for Alpha and Beta cards is getting thinner each day and I don't think we have seen the end of it yet. And, do I even want to sell any of the limited cards at these prices now or do I wait it out a little longer? I have waited for 3 years already anyway. In any case, these sales bring back the excitement I had for the financial aspect of the game, something I haven't felt in a very long time. It also means more people are hodling their cards and other people are willing to buy at higher prices, which is a very bullish sign for the game overall.

In any case, I am really glad I have had strong diamond splinter hands all these years and rode every bump along the way, believing this day would one day come.

Did you notice any sales like this lately? Or are you firmly holding on to your most valuable cards? Or did you invest in any cards?

Projects I am currently super excited about:

• Doctor Who - a trading blockchain card game
• Splinterlands - fun and fast trading blockchain card game
• NBA Topshot - collectible trading game
• Cubdefi

As always this is not financial advice, for documenting purposes only.