RE: Overall scope of scholar effect in Splinterlands
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This analysis collapses because it equates scholars with extractors, which is a category error, not a controversial opinion.
If scholars were extractors, you would see systematic SPS outflows from scholar-piloted accounts. The author explicitly points readers to the SPS transaction API, but never actually uses it to test their own conclusion.
That API makes this trivial:
• Scholar accounts overwhelmingly show direct payouts, stablecoin swaps, or delegated SPS, not market dumping.
• Extractors show consistent sell-side behavior. Scholars may or may not. These are mechanically different flows.
Lumping “who pilots the account” with “who extracts value” is lazy analysis. Control ≠ extraction.
If anything, scholars are labor, not capital. Capital owners decide whether SPS is held, delegated, staked, or sold.
Limiting accounts per scholar, tagging accounts, or inventing social purity tests does nothing to address actual SPS pressure, because scholars are not the dominant source of sell pressure. Bots, arbitrage, and liquidity strategies are, and those are visible on-chain.
If the claim is “350k SPS per season is being extracted,” prove extraction.
The tools were provided. They just weren’t used.
Until then, this is narrative framing, not data analysis, and it actively distracts from real economic issues in Splinterlands.