The many Streams Of Revenue for Splinterlands

Splinterlands is a fun game with a very promising future

Not only is it fun, but also very profitable. I want to explorer this statement here a bit and show all of the diverse ways of generating an income from the game. As such it is somewhat of a follow up post to the "Playing Splinterlands makes no sense financially speaking which painted a bit of a different picture (although as we will see, paradoxically to this post it's actually still a valid statement).

What streams of revenue are there?

• Let's start with staking SPS Staking SPS is simple: just stake your SPS on splinterlands.com and instantly earn rewards. While the APR is variable (dependent on amount of SPS staked as well as the price of Vouchers) it currently is around 30% which is a very good return.
• Then there are the pools You can provide liquidity to several pools involving Splinterlands assets which gives various APRs ranging form around 30% to 80%. Obviously there are several risks involved with the biggest being "impermanent loss" which means you lose some of your assets when the two paired assets in the pool become more or less valuable compared to each other and you exit the pool
• The licenses are another way of earning passive income You simply have to buy one (which is somewhat expensive and will be easier to purchase for anyone holding SPS and the price increases) and you will get some SPS and Vouchers. I currently do not have access to the exact APR but I believe it is between 40% and 60% (correct me if I am wrong!).
• We can also rent out cards on the rental market and get a return This is very variable and depends on what cards you have and how active you are adjusting prices to be competitive. In the past the APR here were very high; unfortunately (or fortunately if you are renting) the prices have come down for cards. Currently you can get between 5% and 30%, although it will probably be rather on the lower side.
• Playing the Game! Of course you can always play the game. In this case you will earn loot chests which are separated into season rewards as well as daily focus rewards. Depending on the league you are in they will be more valuable. From my experience starting in gold league is where it starts to get interesting. In champion the rewards can be quite crazy. The APR here is dependent on several factors among them being the frequency at which you play, the league you are in and of course the value of your cards (or how much you spend if you rent them). For me (in Gold) and playing about 10-20 battles a day it is about 5% which is actually not too high.
• As of today people holding decks for the new Tower Defense game will also receive an SPS airdrop. This will probably only last for several months before the game releases sometime in Q1 of 2023. The distribution amount per deck as well as the APR is currently still unclear.
• And then last but not least is Land Land is highly anticipated by the players and the team, but has been delayed. It is scheduled to be released in two phases of which the second phase will be the one where players will be able to produce spells and potions and make a return. We don't know anything about how high of an APR we could be seeing here. Although it will obviously depend on the value of the cards which you use for staking on land as well as the price at which you bought land.
  Update: As of today plot token holders will receive SPS airdrops. As there are 150k plots and 6.5 million SPS distributed a month, we can assume that 1 plot will receive 1.4 SPS a day or about 43 SPS a month. The APR is obviously dependent on the price of purchase of the plot.

Best strategy?

Obviously there is no single best strategy as this will be dependent on many factors. But there is a takeaway here: the highest APR is from staking SPS as well as form the pools and the licenses. While it is possible to increase the APR from renting out cards as well as playing the game it takes some very good decks to achieve it. This means that players in Champion league will make a very good return, but this quickly is reduced for the lower leagues. It makes sense to have built up the system like this as this will encourage players to move to higher leagues and buy more Splinterlands assets and thereby increasing the value of the economy. But it also means that for most players it makes more sense (financially speaking) to be simply staking SPS! Of course this is a game: so earning money is just one of many reasons people play. There are also some who simply play the game for the fun of it which is good!

Conclusion

Researching the streams of income possibilities of Splinterlands has made it clear to me that earning passively is actually the most profitable way of making a return currently. Actively playing the game only really pays off if you play in Diamonds or Champions leagues. But as mentioned there is also the fun factor: you can still simply enjoy playing the game : ) Land will add another passive way of earning on Splinterlands which will be probably quite decent considering that there will be 6.5 million SPS for rewarding Land holders on a monthly basis.

Check out the Love The Clouds Community if you share the love for clouds!