Every Way to Earn in Splinterlands

Hello, it's Mezume here! We are on a horrible, but expected downswing on everything Splinterlands when it comes to monetary value. Regardless, I have been feeling quite well about my investment as I am still up a fairly large amount on my investment (and I invested close to the overall ATH when it comes to DEC, at around 0,085-ish). I am still not so experienced, having played the game for just shy of two months, but I love watching my assets grow - and imagining how much more I would've had if DEC and SPS were still where they were when I joined. Let's dive into how to earn!

Battles

The simplest and most obvious way to earn in Splinterlands is simply to battle it out in ranked. Of course, there are some ground rules to it, some nuance and quite a bit of knowledge you should have! Let's do bullet points.

• In order to earn, you need to be at least in Bronze II, but to get anything remotely meaningful - Silver 3 is your minimum.
• Your earnings are directly tied to your rating compared against the rating of others: the higher it is, the bigger your earnings - they grow exponentially.
• DEC reward pool grows as DEC value goes up, and lowers as it falls.
• Best time to grind is the 2nd day of each season - The rewards are higher, as everyone's rating is reset, so your personal one is better in comparison to the others.
• There are modifiers that help you earn more DEC: you get 1% extra for each level of the Lodge of your guild, 10% for each Gold Foil and/or Alpha/Promo card you fielded in the battle (stacking), as well as 5% per each consecutive win.
  
  
  

  Tournaments

  
  

Tournaments in Splinterlands are.. they are great, but if you are newer to the game and do not want to put too much, they are also probably not the best way to earn. That said, this is an article about all ways to earn in Splinterlands so.. here we are!

Aside from a few individuals, most tournaments require a lot of SPS staked (another reason to do it!) and have players with maxed cards joining in (for whatever league the tournament cap is!). The rewards are high though, so it does pay off to be the best!

People like @clove71 and ZenSports create multiple tournaments each month in which anyone can participate - there is no staking requirement and the entry fee is 1DEC - that's nearly nothing! While these still obviously have great players with maxed decks, they are great practice and if you get lucky, you can still get away with some extra DEC or SPS to your name!

SPS Airdrop

This is the most short-term way to earn, as it will go away in just above half a year! This is an airdrop that gets calculated some minutes after 5PM CET (Central European Time) and given out to all the players based on their airdrop points, compared to the total airdrop points of all players. At the time of writing, you get 1 SPS for around 8500 airdrop points - but even if you don't have that, you will still receive fractions of an SPS!

Pretty much everything you hold contributes to this airdrop, except for SPS itself. This includes Colleciton Power, as well as DEC at a rate of 1 airdrop point for each 1 CP and for each 1 DEC. DEC you hold in Liquidity Pools counts for 2 each, but with those, you should probably first check out some informative posts on Impermanent Loss, etc. Stuff like Card Packs, Land Plots, Splintertalk tokens you're holding and more also count for this.

SPS Staking

There has been a lot of panic going around with SPS going down and we just got a great overview of plans for SPS for 2022. Regardless of that, staking SPS already lets you earn some rewards, similarly to how everything else does. Currently, there are two things you get for staking your SPS:

• SPS. Yes, you can get some good compounding interest on your SPS, as the current APR on staking is around 40%.
• Vouchers. In order to purchase packs in pre-sale of CL, and potentially of future card sets, Voucher tokens are required. Those can only be gained through staking your SPS or buying at the secondary market. Even when general sale hits, Vouchers will be used to receive extra packs on top of what you pay for with Credits, as long as you buy in large bulk.

Keep in mind that SPS staking is meant to be even more essential in the future, especially when the SPS airdrop ceases to exist. This will especially include governance and battle rewards.

Card Rentals

This is a short and simple way, so I will not get too in-depth. If you do not have the time to play and do not care about the daily rewards or which league you are in - simply rent out the cards you own.

This is a very effective way to get a decent yearly return on assets, while you are able to come back any time, cancel the rentals and play within 24 hours. Renting out works the best towards the end of season, where players are willing to pay more money for the Collection Power.

You can also always rent just the cards you do not use or need for a little extra passive income while you still play ranked!

Card Flipping

Well, we're out of mostly passive or in-game earnings. This is one of my personal favourites, as it is quite exciting to flip cards. It can also be extremely profitable - or you can simply waste time and DEC doing so.

It is crucial that you are using peakmonsters for this, as that can save you lots of time. Instead of manually looking for offers, it is great to have bids on cards set up, that you can then resell for profit. The trick here is that you need to have extensive knowledge of the market and the general environment of Splinterlands. You need to be aware of the card's potential strength, its past value and the recent demand. Finally, you need to keep in mind that you do have to pay a 5% fee when selling it, so you need to resell at a higher % increase than that.

Personally, I only resell cards I want to own - so that if a trade fails and the overall value drops, at least I'm left with something I want to own and play with. I just try to find biggest forks between high bid and low card values, ensure it isn't inflated by whatever factors and then swoop in on the action. I made a lot of DEC this way and it's the main reason my account grew in value despite the large drop in all SPL assets' value.

Long Term Holding

The value of some assets in Splinterlands is very volatile and has been falling recently, but keep in mind it's mostly just adjusting after a HUGE increase in the middle of 2021. In the case of most assets in the Splinterlands universe, it is likely it will keep growing - especially from the bottom it is expected to hit somewhere within a month of general sale.

Note that this is mostly speculative and while I believe in Splinterlands long-term, I would encourage you to first DYOR instead of listening to me or anyone else promising you ridiculous profits like the ones people harvested earlier this year. Here are some assets you could hold:

• Cards. This is the most obvious, as everyone expects the value to drop off a cliff when general sale hits. Picking them up at that time might lead you to be able to profit off of the rebound they will do - and the potential continued growth in line with that of the game itself.
• Land. The biggest thing for 2022, alongside SPS utility is Land. While I believe it might be slightly overpriced right now, I also think picking it up at the right price could increase your account worth significantly. This will essentially let you be up there with the big, fat fish on creating spells and items that are supposed to completely change the way Splinterlands is played. Or you could just resell it for higher when FOMO hits in near land release.
• SPS. I've talked about ways to get SPS already, but it's also great to simply hold it - liquid or staked (preferably staked!). It is likely at or very close to its bottom price, and with more utility coming its way, I can't imagine it not stabilizing at least somewhat higher than current price.
  
  
  

  BONUS WAYS TO EARN

  
  
  While these ways are all outside of strictly Splinterlands, keep in mind that by playing Splinterlands, we are all a part of the HIVE blockchain and can make use of what's available here!
• Blogging. I know it is not everyone's cup of tea to write posts, but if you do enjoy writing and are able to do it regularly - eventually some of your posts will start gaining traction and give you some HIVE. You can either keep it in HIVE, or exchange for SPL tokens like DEC!
• Curating. In the same vein as blogging: once you have some HIVE Power staked, not only do you get more Resource Credits - your upvote is worth more. Upvoting also rewards you, so make sure to upvote posts you like to both give someone a smile, as well as grab yourself a small reward. Eventually, it'll all build up to a nice additional income of HIVE!
• Games. There are also other games on HIVE! I currently only play Rising Star and can definitely recommend it. It is a passive game where all you need to do is send your character on missions to earn some Starbits - a currency of the game. While at first it is very slow, you'll eventually be able to get quite a bit of DEC for your Starbits every few days! Or just reinvest them to grow your Rising Star account - whichever you prefer.

Let me know if I missed something or if you have comments on what I have written! I hope this can help someone in discovering how you can earn in Splinterlands.