The End of a 3-months Experiment!
This post is probably my last earnings breakdown, at least, for a while. I’ve tried my best to be as transparent as I could in the last three months to provide new players with realistic expectations. Nonetheless, as I am considering taking a shift in my approach going forwards, doing those breakdowns on a monthly basis will not make sense anymore.
Comparison Table
| After a month | After two months (cumulative) | After three months (cumulative) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Articles: | 35 | → 69 | → 100 |
| Upvotes: | 804 | → 1404 | → 2585 |
| Followers: | 12 | → 27 | → 34 |
| Comments: | 90 | → 174 | → 242 |
Gross Pay
| TOTAL (in dollars): | 1st month: $163.28 | 2nd month: $164.35 | 3nd month: $132.37 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Splintertalk: | 6785.97 SPT (~$20.15) | 1262.83 (~$2.26) | 1966.41 (~$3.15) |
| PeakD: | 106.56 HBD (~$108.96) | 180.26 (~$157.90) | 139.16 (~$127.89) |
| 1Up: | 977.49 OneUp (~$34.17) | 242.15 (~$4.19) | 233.00 (~$1.33) |
Remark: The amounts in dollars are rough estimates as they might fluctuate from day-to-day. 50% of the gains actually go to the curators. The other 50% is the Net Pay, which is half liquid/half staked.
Why has the number of upvotes gone up about 80% but the earnings down about 20%?
1. Partially because of the tokens’ current downtrend pattern
2. Partially because the votes have not equal weight
For new players unfamiliar with the Hive ecosystem, this blockchain has been built in a way that gives people with the most staked tokens the possibility of generously rewarding the authors they like. This is a foundational block on how its economy works. The more tokens you have staked, the more power your vote carries. And, for the most part, this makes perfect sense. The only issue, however, is that the incentive became, by design, not directed toward attracting more readers, but more about attracting the “right” ones. Consequently, in that sense, I feel that I have failed.
What were the benefits I got from the last 3 months?
That being said, the benefits of posting every single day for the last 90 days were numerous!
Resource Credits
In my first week of blogging, I was struggling with my Resource Credits (RC). In fact, my RC was so low that it was easily drained after a post or two. Today, I have 78M, which allows me to do pretty much any transaction I need within the ecosystem without worrying about running out of RC.
Rentals
I started blogging with very humble objectives in mind. My main goal was simply to generate enough tokens to cover my daily rentals for staying in Silver leagues at the time. This, in turn, allowed me to keep getting non-nerfed loot chests, and consequently, slowly increase my Collection Power (CP).
Collection Power
This was probably my biggest gain of all. Three months ago, I was hovering around the 3500 CP. With this progression rate, I projected getting to 15k CP near the end of the year. However, by a combination of luck, a few successful posts and a downtrend market, I have been able to buff up my CP to 32k, which is 9x times what I had!
Hive Power
My Hive Power (HP) reached the $100 mark not so long ago. And obviously, I should mention that I started with 0. At the time of writing, however, my HP is not worth that much anymore partly because Hive is currently trending down, but also because I keep on powering down my HP to perpetually fuel my progress in the game.
I also learned to appreciate the slow process of powering down from the Hive blockchain (13 weeks in total) as it provides me with a steady weekly income to work with. Today, those weekly tokens can more than cover my rentals, which made me think of re-strategizing my approach.
From Bronze to Gold
At the beginning of my blogging journey, I was often sent back to low Bronze at the end of each season reset. Nowadays. this is almost no longer the case as I usually manage to end each season above Silver I. Consequently, the worst case is simply starting back at 900 MMR, which is very close to the Silver leagues anyway.
Why do I think of re-strategizing an approach that seems to work?
Entertaining Budget Dry
I gave myself a hard cap of $2000 to put into this game. At the time of writing, I am already quickly closing in as I’ve spent most of it acquiring as many SPS tokens as I could. Plus, since the General Sale, I also have 100 Chaos Legion packs sleeping in my account.
Breakdown of my spending
- $1300 into SPS
- $400 into Chaos Legion Packs
- $70 into Vouchers
- $30 into Cards
By looking at those numbers, you’ll notice that I only have $200 left, which might be allocated to a Plot of Land in the future. Another thing is the 68 Vouchers and 3696 SPS I recently purchased as part of a short-term play. This latest move was a bit out of character as I usually tend to invest with a longer time horizon in mind.
To me, this was kind of a red flag when I noticed that I was starting to lose patience by leaning more towards short-term speculations. This is obviously no financial advice as I am not even sure I made a savvy move. Sure enough, this has been sparked by the fact that possible Alphas might be dropped about the SPS nodes in the next Town Hall, which could be a potential catalyst.
An ROI of roughly $1 per day
As I mentioned in my latest giveaway, my average ROI during my 160+ days of playing Splinterlands is about $1 a day. This doesn’t seem much but it was enough to help me build a somewhat competitive base-level deck for Gold leagues. However, in order to reach the next threshold, I would need to spend much more money on cards.
Leveling up Summoners and Monsters is a costly endeavor. Personally, I currently don’t feel the need of doing it. I might be slightly more competitive, but I’ll still be held back by my lack of Collection Power. Unfortunately, I feel that I’ve reached a stage where spending frugally my $1 a day doesn’t make that much of a difference anymore.
The 80/20 Rule (again)
In my last earnings breakdown, I presented the fact that by solely participating in two weekly Splinterlands’ challenges on Splintertalk, new players would be able to save time while maximizing their earnings. Again, my numbers this month pushed me to follow my own advice. 81.36% of my earnings came from 26.67% of my posts. And, you’ve guessed it, they essentially came from my participation in those challenges.
In a nutshell
With an entertainment budget that offers no more leeway, an ROI that doesn’t move much of the needle anymore and the huge discrepancy between the time spent and the rewards received, I’ve decided to reallocate my time, hopefully, in a more productive manner. I’ll still do my two challenges per week (at least) like I’ll keep on completing my daily quest in the game.
By doing so, I hope to zoom out a bit and regain control over my time overall, while building an approach that will be more aligned with the timeline the team development currently follows.
Thomas
For new players interested in joining this amazing game, you can support me by using the following referral link (at no extra cost to you!):
https://splinterlands.com?ref=tt88
Thank you.