Yesterday I turned 26 years of age. Enough of a reason to get myself a little birthday present! In real life, I have actually bought myself some hiking gear recently, so I decided to gor for a gift in the virtual world. And what could be fitting better than the best version of my favorite card of my favorite game on my favorite blockchain? I know, a lot of "favorites" there - But hey, I really couldn't think of anything better than a MAXXED GOLD-FOIL COCATRICE in the trading card game SPLINTERLANDS!
"Wow, you are pathetic, spending a few hundred bucks on a virtual card in a virtual game!"
"A lot of people spend a lot of money on a lot of stupid stuff, so why shouldn't I be allowed to do so!?" could of course be an answer, as I don't think I would need to defend what I buy for my own entertainment. But fortunately, I have a better answer!
"I didn't spend a few hundred bucks - I invested them!"
It's not that I just spent the money and it is away. Actually, the money is quite well invested in my eyes for several reasons. Cocatrice one of the most universal (and therefore best) cards in the game Splinterlands! I just have seen statistics from top-level player 
The golden version of the card will have an instant active ROI, as it will give me a 10% boost on DEC (Dark Energy Crystals, the ingame currency of the game) earned in matches where I win with a Cocatrice in my deck. With the current price of DEC, this will probably amount to a few bucks per month extra. If the value of DEC rises, which is not unlikely due to a lot of new stuff coming, this amount will rise as well.
The gold version of the card has a huge potential for a big passive ROI! Cocatrice is a card that can only be obtained from Beta packs. Almost two thirds of all Beta packs are gone. As of now, there are 316 golden Cocatrices out there, most of them probably not combined. You need 22 golden Cocatrices to combine a max level one.
This means that there currently only could be around 20 max level golden Cocatrices if you were able to collect all the single cards of them. In fact, I only know two other players who have this card at max level: 
When Beta is completely sold out, it is likely that there will never ever be more than 30 golden versions of this card. Combining this extreme rarity with the fact that things look quite bright for the game Splinterlands (guilds coming, mobile app coming, crypto market rising again, ...), I am quite positive on the future value development of my birthday present :)
And even if I do not sell the card, I probably can earn a passive ROI by renting out the card to players who want to compete at the top level in gold-foil tournaments! If you wanna know more about the renting market, check out 
That's it for now, I am going to collect some DEC with my present!
Have a nice day,
Martin