Burying Gold

While the price has been sliding significantly, I have been taking the opportunity to stack a little more SPS, on top of what I get in yield from the pools and the APR, which is currently sitting around 36%

We are very close to halfway through the airdrop now (181/365) and at the rate I am earning each day, I should have close to a quarter million SPS staked by the end. That might be worth 5000 dollars if it is at 2c, 50,000 at 20 cents, 250K at a dollar or.... zero. Zero is always an option and long-term, it is the project development and community support that will dictate which it is going to be. If it is the dollar option, I can pay off my house, if it is the zero option, I will have lost a lot of opportunities in other projects.

This is the risk of supporting a team, but unlike a sports team, we aren't just buying a jersey, scarf and tickets to the game, we are buying ownership of the team itself. This is what sets crypto apart from the majority of traditional businesses and economies, as we can actually take stake and affect the outcomes of the game.

One of the reasons I didn't get into Splinterlands earlier is that I am not a gamer these days (though I am picking it up again) and, I didn't really understand the ownership model of it, as I never explored it. Had I listened closer to friends about it, I am pretty sure it would have clicked and I would be one of those highly-staked users, because I am a holder by nature.

Why I did get into it eventually though, was firstly because those same friends persisted in schooling me and, it moved over to Hive, even though it might have been easier to stay on Steem. This was an important aspect for me, as I want to support Hive development, not Steem development, because while I am investing into Splinterlands, I am well-staked on HIVE also and want it to be a high-end performer in the cryptosphere. I think that gaming and content delivery platforms go hand in hand and since they are intimately linked at the blockchain level, there is a growing potential for collaboration on the second-layer, which is going to largely come through community members of both experiences.

While I don't think that there is a strong correlation between the price of HIVE and Splinterlands activity, I do think that it will increasingly grow from the aspect that second-layer experiences inform the first-layer value. And in this regard, it is the userbase that matters, not just the number of transactions. Back in the day, transaction numbers used to be used as an indicator of value potential and of course they are important for network utilization and scalability predictions, but in terms of price, they don't matter that much at all, especially if all of the transactions are largely useless.

However, what is happening on those transactions does matter and it would be interesting to see how much value is being transferred in a 24 hour period on the Hive blockchain, when all of the transactions of HIVE, HBD and card assets are added up. Not to mention the value on the second layer tokens daily too. I don't know if it is possible to do, but that must be an enormous amount of value and, that is the value moving internally on the blockchain and within the community - not on the exchanges.

I think that this indicates the future of the crypto industry and why the project communities are so vital to the success of the underlying blockchain, as unless they are attracting real users who double-down as owners, they become automated ghost towns.

This also gives an idea about what is needed for a project to survive the bear markets too, especially if protracted for a longer amount of time - reasons to use. I think that this is why Hive is in pretty good shape, as despite the price ups and downs, there will be people here willing to use it for all kinds of reasons. Earnings come into it of course, but future earnings based on collected tokens do also.

Just like the SPS I mentioned earlier that will be used in-game for various things, some announced and some that could be developed, the value of it today might drop, but the value of it tomorrow increase. The same with Hive, where for a long time people were complaining about how little they earned, until the pump at the end of 2021 and as long as they didn't sell at the lows, that value suddenly was far, far greater and they had nothing to complain about.

Going forward, if this is indeed going to be a long, drawn-out and harsh bear, I plan on staying as active as humanely possible, because not only is there the potential for value in the future, for me, there is value in the present activity too. I can play rounds on Splinterlands nd delve into the economy of it, talk about strategy and speculate on the future with friends and write content based on my own experiences. Similarly, I do this on Hive anyway, where life and crypto intertwine with hundreds and thousands of other people's experiences to build a community. While not everyone will survive the bear and stay active on Hive, I do think the Hive project and many of the active communities will actually do very well and have a lot of activity upon them, even though the monetary value they are transferring is significantly less than today.

This means that when the bullrun next arrives, there are a lot of people who have bought and earned high-value, but low-price assets that empower communities and will be using them as the increases come to improve their lives in so many ways, again.

While many people do look at all of this as a get-rich-quick scheme, where the real value is will come through the longevity of projects, in the same way businesses build customer base support over the space of decades. There will always be lean times, but that doesn't mean they have to be boring times, nor that activity need stop. But, this is all opt-in and opt-out, so during the bears, we will see who really wants a future in crypto.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]