Splinterlands in 2024: Looking at the Current State of the Card Market and Player Base

The table below presents the current distribution of card values among Splinterlands users across different value ranges, ranging from $0 to over $1 million. Each value range represents the cumulative value of owned cards falling within that range. Additionally, the table provides insights into the number of users and the combined value of cards within each range.

March 2024

March 2023

Key Findings

Distribution of Users: The majority of Splinterlands users, accounting for approximately 52.86% of the total, own cards with a value ranging from $0 to $1. This indicates a large proportion of casual players or those with a limited collection of cards.

Concentration of Value: Despite a large number of users in the lower value ranges, the combined value of cards increases significantly as we move towards higher value ranges. Notably, users owning cards with values ranging from $10K to $100K represent only 0.34% of the total user base but contribute to 40.45% of the combined card value.

High-Value Players: A small but significant portion of users, particularly those with card values exceeding $100K, play a crucial role in driving the overall value of the Splinterlands economy. These high-value players likely possess rare and powerful cards sought after by other players, contributing to the game's competitive dynamics.

Long-Tail Distribution: The distribution of card values follows a long-tail pattern, with a steep decline in the number of users and combined value as we move towards higher value ranges. This indicates that while a large number of users own low-value cards, a few high-value cards contribute significantly to the overall economy.

Market Value Declined: As we can see compared to 2023 the total market value of the card assets have declined in half from $83.4 million to $44.9 million despite the total number of users dropping only slightly by about 8,000 players. We also see that number of decks with 0-$10 saw an increase while all other categories have experienced drops in a number of users. Number of users with a serious investment in cards ($1000 to $1 million) has dropped from 7562 users a year ago to 4715 users at this time. Number of users with $100 to $1000 value cards has dropped from 15032 user to 9410

Rental Market Rental market daily active rental contracts have stabilized around June of 2024 and the same can be said of the value of the daily rental contracts:

The daily rental peak value was reached at the end of 2021 around $167000 per day with current daily rental value around $1840

Total Splinterlands Cards Market Cap As we see from the chart below the total card market cap is still in decline. After reaching $280 million dollars at the end of 2021 we are currently down to $44.9 million dollars:

Zooming out of the big picture we have seen some positive signs in the card set value recently. This is particularly true with the modern sets:

Chaos Legion Set:

Riftwatchers Set:

As we see from the set values it takes $5,000 to buy a full set of modern cards excluding Rebellion. Therefore we know that there are less than 4,000 players that can theoretically be competing at the top level in Modern league. This is collaborated by the fact that I am at 294th place in the middle of Diamond 2:

And to further show how small the Modern league player base is here we have a bottom of Silver Modern League:

So we have less than 1500 players in Modern league!

The modern player base is really small, that is the bad part, but it is also a very good part. This means that even 1,000 new players that purchase full decks for modern would have a huge impact on the card market as well as SPS token prices.

The card market analysis would not be complete without showing the number of cards per edition. We can see that all card editions are going down in number of cards with the exception of the Soul-bound Reward cards:

Conclusion
The analysis of card value distribution among Splinterlands users highlights the diverse player base and the significant role played by high-net worth players in shaping the game's economy. As Splinterlands continues to evolve and attract new players, understanding and adapting to these dynamics will be essential for players and developers alike to thrive in the ever-changing world of blockchain-based gaming.

So where do you start? If you have not joined the Splinterlands ecosystem feel free to use My Splinterlands link