My crypto NFTs have jumped from $10 to $5000
Splinter shards (SPS) is the official crypto for the coolest game on the blockchain, called Splinterlands.
I found this online game back in 2019 while researching crypto and trying to understand it. Splinterlands is a virtual card game. A bit like that Suicide squad, if you have seen that movie. You draft a group of monsters and your opponent does the same, and then you have a battle to the death.
These monster cards are actually non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the blockchain. And while Splinterlands is a lot of fun, what shocked me was my ability to make money while playing.
Image source: Splinterlands.
A free game turned into a money maker
When you start playing Splinterlands, it’s a free game. After playing for a couple of months and my monsters kept getting killed by weird and powerful villains I’d never seen before, I decided to pay $10 via PayPal and access the entire catalog of monsters.
I was just having fun. I chose to pay $10 to expand my play options and get access to the full list of monsters. What I didn’t know at the time is that once I paid $10, the game changed dramatically. I started owning the NFT cards I won.
At the time, I didn’t know what an NFT was. This game introduced me to the concept. In fact, there is one reason why you want to play Splinterlands, apart from the fun factor: you want to engage with the crypto universe and learn more and more about it.
Your NFT assets increase in value
In the back of my mind I knew the cards had some value. But everything was in kroner, so it didn’t seem to matter that much. I just kept playing for fun.
When you play Splinterlands and win a match, you are awarded another virtual currency called DEC (Dark Energy Crystals). You can use DEC to buy monster cards in the game market. A common strategy is to buy several cards of the same monster and combine them. This is called “leveling up” and it makes your monster stronger. Doing so unlocks new and amazing powers.
It also has the effect of removing NFTs from existence and making your monster cards more valuable. After playing for over a year, I noticed that the prices of many of my NFTs had gone from pennies to dollars, which I thought was exciting.
After playing for a year and a half, I tallied up the value of my cards. And they were worth $2,000. My cost base was still $10.
2021 was a good year for crypto
Last year, the number of Splinterlands players increased dramatically, as more and more people from around the world discovered the game. More players led to more demand for the NFT playing cards. And the gameplay mechanics (merge cards to make your monster stronger) shrunk the number of available cards.
The value of my NFT deck went higher and higher. Two months after my first article, my cards had shot up in value to $12,000. And a month after that, my NFT monster cards were worth $17,000.
At that time there was a boom in the NFT market. Many people bought NFTs. Still, this increase from a $10 fee to $17,000 in assets was highly unusual.
I attribute this to a couple of factors. One, Splinterlands rewards active players who put in many hours. I have played hundreds of hours. And the other factor is that the nature of the game shrinks the number of NFT cards that exist of a specific monster. So the individual cards become rarer and rarer. And the dollar value goes up and up.
In 2022, the crypto market crashed (again)
Once or twice a year, Splinterlands introduces a new deck of monsters into the game. The newest and biggest deck is called Chaos Legion.
Every time a new deck is introduced, it increases the supply of cards overall and prices take a hit. The value of my cards dropped to $14,000 in early January. Later, the valuation would crash along with the crypto market; it fell to $7,000 in May. Now my cards sell for around $5000 on third party sites.
The rapid rise and fall of my card prices reminds me of the stock market, the crypto market, the art market, the comic book market. It is quite normal for valuations in emerging markets to skyrocket and crash before zooming much higher.
Splinterlands is in its very early stages. The game started in 2018. I believe this game will continue to grow, along with crypto. And it’s still a lot of fun to play. Over time my cards will become rarer and rarer and their values will rise again.
Over the past year, I’ve not only concluded that crypto is a valid asset class, I’ve started investing in it. I have bought Solana and Phantom and Ankr coins and a few others. And it occurred to me that maybe I should add a few dollars to my most entertaining crypto asset.
So via PayPal I have recently added some money to Splinterlands, beyond my initial cost of $10. That’s not necessary. What you really want to do is check out the game. And if you like it, be sure to pay $10 and start winning some NFT assets. It is well worth your time.
