For me, the most exciting piece of news as I listened to the latest Splinterlands AMA was the expectation that card rentals would be available on the Splinterlands main site soon, perhaps even in a week.
I am super excited for what this will do to encourage the current playerbase to try new and different cards, and how it will really help newer players to sink their teeth into the game especially at higher levels.
Of course it is also good for me as an account dedicated to providing cards for rent. I had begun my investment journey into Splinterlands with the expectation that this day would one day come, and I had wanted to be well-placed to reap the rewards both in terms of having a decently sized position of cards as well as a fairly good understanding of the dynamics of the Splinterlands market - the rental market in particular.
While I have not gotten all the card positions that I wanted (but then again, who is ever satisfied only with the cards they already have?), I have gained much in education and knowledge of the people, the patterns and the forces that move this market. Of course, the quest for more knowledge and more cards remains ever ongoing.
As I write this post in celebration of the rental system coming soon, here are a few thoughts as to some of the impacts this will have on the players and the game:
Most of the time, the winnings from DEC reward chests don't get you very far in terms of advancing in the game. Of course, there are always the very special occasions when you strike it big like 
But with rentals soon to be native to the Splinterlands main site, and with the ability to pay in DEC, that all changes. Because suddenly, collecting a handful of chests now opens up the possibility of renting a powerful card off the market for a day or two. By reducing the friction of card rentals by having contracts natively payable in DEC, suddenly nearly every DEC chest becomes an opportunity to provide a small, instant and short-term boost to your lineup. For newer players, this is HUGE for improving the early-game experience without needing to hand out more freebies that may be prone to farming and abuse.
As I mentioned above, the friction of card rentals is going to be greatly reduced. Currently, the amount of friction in the card rental market is quite severe. If you are not already part of the community, you would not even know that a rental market even existed on Peakmonsters.
Furthermore, having to convert a cryptocurrency (like DEC) into HIVE via something like tribaldex (or some other dex) and then deposit HIVE into peakmonsters in order to even participate means that a good number of people would give up before they even got halfway through the process of even loading up their Peakmonsters account with money.
Nevermind that once you finally get your credits loaded, it is such a labourious task to sort through all the different cards and all the different contracts to pick the one you want.
When you consider how difficult the existing process is to get a rental contract set up between two people and have money exchange hands, I find it frankly miraculous that I have as many cards rented as I do. If you take away about ~190 or so cards which I listed as regular 1 BCX bulk for funsies, about 3/4s of my actual rental 'stock' is currently delegated out. All things considered, I am really happy with that - and I am looking forward to the new system of greatly reduced friction and increased liquidity of cards and DEC (along with reduced cooldown!). 3/4s of stock delegated isn't bad, but 100% is even better :)
Of course, a ton of new market participants will enter into the market both from the supply and demand end, so I will definitely become a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond (or a smaller bird in a bigger aviary ... something like that). But I welcome the upgrades nonetheless, because I believe there is more than enough opportunity for everyone to gain a lot from what this game is about to offer.
Currently Peakmonsters rentals runs on HIVE/HBD. Most people pay in HIVE and in the current market downturn, this has killed my yields in USD terms since I don't convert my earnings to DEC frequently - I probably convert about once a season. Of course, its awesome to earn in HIVE on the way up, but I would rather than the relative stability of DEC over HIVE any day, since I am already exposed to capital gains upside with my card collection exposure.
Of course, DEC payments are also much better for the renter as well, since contracts are denominated in USD terms and not HIVE. I'd imagine there's nothing worse for a long-term renter than to find out that there's been a severe downturn and all your contracts get broken because you ran out of HIVE unexpectedly. And if there's escrow involved ... ouch.
I do wonder whether in the future, rental contracts might be denominated in DEC rather than in USD - I think that would make it even more compelling to regular players who can then easily assess the relative costs of various cards for rent. It certainly seems a lot easier for the regular person to make a quick judgment about cost if something is denominated in a pseudo-stablecoin like DEC than in other games where stuff is denominated in ETH for example.
Making renting native to the Splinterlands site now opens up the possibility for every single player in the game to really easily earn yield on their cards, which is phenomenal. Compared to the current renting system or account delegation services, native renting will likely represent the path of least resistance for most players (especially newer players) to put their cards up for yield if they want to take a break from the game or simply want to hold on to cards that they don't use, but don't want to sell either.
I shared my daily rental fee income as my headline picture for this blog because I wanted to share some context regarding the numbers when it comes to my card leasing experience. If I take into account the fullness of my $ and time invested into the card leasing side of the game, actually the returns are pretty poor. If you are in this just to make money, your time and your $ are probably better spent elsewhere.
My current yields are extremely low across the board. But that has to do more with the recent surge in prices where yields have not yet caught up. ESPECIALLY in the gold foil market, which I specialize in. Under the 'old' market conditions before things skyrocketed, typically I aimed for 1% per month yield on average per card as a good baseline. Nowadays that number is closer to 0.5% per month. Multiply that by 60-75% (because not every card is rented all the time) and you get a yield that does not seem very appealing at all. You could throw your DAI or USDC in a vault and earn much better than that!
Basically my point is, you have to love the game and the cards and have great confidence in the future of this community if you want to take card leasing seriously. And especially if you wanted to start building up a collection to lease out around now, expect your yields to be terrible. It remains to be seen whether reducing the friction will make yields go up or down. My guess is that regular foils will fall while gold foils will be steady (after all, it isn't as though GF yields have a lot further to fall ...). But let's wait and see.
Personally for me, I am hopeful that a lot of my higher-end cards will find a home once the new system goes live. In time I do hope to be able to crack the $10 per day mark for rental fees. Everything I earn is being plowed back into the game, and I have no intention of withdrawing anything back into the 'real world' any time soon.
Would you be interested in a ...
Card ID: C4-291-0EWWC5PK6O
Escrow: $1.134
Daily Fee: $0.081
Min/Max Duration: 1/180 Days
I actually have a couple of these level 4 kitties sitting around waiting for an owner. The byz kitty is a pretty hot commodity right now, being totally meme-worthy and a very powerful summoner. Adopt one today!
Whether you are a human, an alt account or a bot, as always I appreciate your support!!
Ostrich Tier (>$0.10 per day)
Eagle Tier (>$0.01 per day)
Pigeon Tier (>$0.005 per day)
Sparrow Tier (>=$0.001 per day)
@Renter
Competitive daily rates
Generous contract terms
Useful abilities you actually want!
https://peakmonsters.com/@legendarycanary/cards
Filter by "Delegated: No" & "Cooldown: No"
