Huge announcement today from the team regarding SPS utility coming in 2022. I highly recommend reading the full announcement as there is so much in it including governance, land, and more. My focus for this post is on the Riftwatchers portion.
When Azmare Dice came out , it was exclusively available to purchase via DEC. This became a forced burn mechanism for DEC tokens which in an economic sense should drive up the value as it becomes more scarce. Many folks, including myself, were expecting the same for the upcoming Riftwatchers mini edition as a way to help ease the transition out of the airdrop. The price of DEC is heavily inflated over it's peg and a burn for a new mini expansion seemed like the perfect way to avoid a steep price decline in the days leading to end of the airdrop.
Instead, we got an announcement that came as a shock to many. Instead of being exclusively available via DEC, Riftwatchers will be released in Q2 of this year and be exclusively available with SPS.
Now the important thing to note is that SPS will not be burnt, but instead put into the DAO foundation. SPS stakers will be able to vote on how these funds are used. With 3 million packs planned to be issued at a price of $5/pack, the team is expecting to get about $12M into the fund after accounting for bonus packs.
That's quite the war chest.
Splinterlands is poised to do some major things in 2022 but the team was not kidding when they said that SPS would be at the foundation of it. It's been a difficult time for asset holders after seeing the market dip so dramatically over the past couple of weeks. The launch of a new expansion always leads to some type of price discovery and repricing of the market, but that doesn't make it any easier for investors who went heavy in October/November and are down significantly.
Today's roadmap release is a welcomed source of excitement for what 2022 has to bring in regards to Splinterlands. SPS is going to be at the core of this and I fully trust in the team's ability to deliver value to the asset holders within the game.
Riftwatchers will bring with it another major shift into the card market as well as game meta, but now that many newbies have been through a release we should know what to expect and the amount of FOMO should be more tempered. At least one can hope!
