The SPS Catalyst

@splinterlands recently put out its proposal to fund a mini-set for Conclave Arcana, and the most contentious part of the proposal is that the set will be priced not only in $DEC but also in $SPS, and that the $SPS price will be "pegged" to an amount whereby it provides an effective discount (vs other currency options) until $SPS is at roughly $0.0143.

For reference, the pricing options for the set are as follows:

Pack Type	Price in DEC/Credits	Price in SPS	Price in USDC
Standard	5,000	350	$5
Alchemy	20,000	1,400	$20
Legendary	25,000	1,750	$25

This means that, at the current price of $SPS (~$0.0085), a Standard pack costs ~$3, an Alchemy pack costs ~$12, and a Legendary pack costs ~$15.

I am in favor of this proposal and here are the 2 primary reasons why:

(1) Marketing: This is great for marketing. It drives immediate demand to SPS which should lead to volume & price appreciation, which is one of the best forms of marketing in crypto. Ultimately, $SPS adoption will drive interest in the game, could bring in new players & investors, and drives the REAL flywheel (higher SPS price --> new players/investors --> higher SPS price --> new players/investors --> etc.). If people want the set, this should drive sustained demand for $SPS up to that "peg" price of $0.0143.

(2) Advantage for existing players: It gives current players an advantage because we're currently able to get $SPS under the "peg" price of ~$0.0143. When you're involved in a small project like Splinterlands, you should have an advantage for being early and knowing what's going on, and this is one such advantage. Whether there's enough demand or not is debatable, but if you assume there's demand, then you can capitalize and have better access to the set by buying $SPS.

If $SPS is <$0.0143 when the mini-set goes live, then everyone who wants packs will be incentivized to buy with $SPS, which will continue to drive buy pressure. That $SPS will then be sent to the DAO, where, for the time being, it'll be locked up. If it's used to replenish rewards in the future it may come back into circulation, but at least for the time being it won't contribute to sell pressure.

If however $SPS is >$0.0143 when the mini-set is live, then this MAY cause sell pressure on $SPS if people want to convert it (particularly those who are buying right now and are making a gain) to buy $DEC and use that instead for their purchases. This would then put buy pressure on $DEC.

One of the main push-backs is that we should be driving up demand for $DEC rather than $SPS, because that's what kicks off the SPS/DEC "flywheel". However the reality is that they go hand-in-hand. $DEC drives demand for $SPS and $SPS drives demand for $DEC. However, price appreciation in $SPS is much more feasible AND much more likely to draw the attention of new players and investors.

Worse case scenario, this doesn't drive enough demand for $SPS to move the price significantly and we don't get the "marketing" benefit. If that's the case, then it's likely the demand with $DEC alone would have had an equally lackluster effect on the Splinterlands economy. Even in that scenario, we're still likely to send lots of $SPS to the DAO as players will capitalize on the cheap $SPS. The difference of this proposal vs only pricing in $DEC is that it gives us an OPPORTUNITY at a marketing event ($SPS gaining steam) while also making the set more accessible to existing players (if they choose to buy $SPS now).

To summarize, I believe this is a great catalyst to create demand of $SPS while also making the set accessible to current players.

And lastly, let me make a bold prediction...: I predict that once the mini-set goes live, $SPS will be well above $0.0143 and we'll all be buying our mini-set packs in $DEC 😅

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