Whale Watching 2: Electric Boogaloo

Welcome back frens, last time we took a look at STARBITS and the whale action going on there. Well, it looks like @wagginston is back and raising the floor on STARPRO:

As of writing, it appears he has a 5 SWAP.HIVE bid, with a total of over 2500 HIVE allocated to this move (also including some of the lower bids that were placed and filled, not only the bulk at 5 SWAP.HIVE). So what's the end game here? Since we last looked at Rising Star, the Fan Club has gone live. Players can use STARPRO to run missions that reward exclusive cards.

It certainly is in the whales favor to have control over the music promoter mode, with the last check of it showing over 50% of the newly generated STARPRO going to them! Unfortunately, for the majority of players, this further breaks the in game economy and any possibility of self sustaining play to see aspects of the game. Other players are catching on to this as well it seems, looking at the official @risingstargame Discord:

What's more surprising, is that wagginston's STARPRO holdings have more than doubled since the last whale sighting - now holding over 32% of the circulating STARPRO. Again, this number is exclusive of any held by the Rising Star game in its account, as well as exclusive of the ~500 (~1%) buy order that's open.

From a token economy perspective, it's not great. Prices are, arguably, artificially inflated by a single person that has significant control over the market. The game situation is more interesting. Players being significantly hindered from accessing festival tour and fan club mode is a bummer. The interesting part comes from a shift in dynamics.

For Music Promoter, the typical/designed scenario is somewhat akin to a PvP, every person for themselves set up. Players try to outbid each other, but also want to bid the lowest amount possible to win. Now, because of the rewards being proportional, that holds true with the additional goal of not letting wagginston be the highest bidder. It'd be interesting to see if this evolves into players combining forces against the whale bids. Alternatively, perhaps there'll be a cap implemented per STARPRO per day.

Granted, this scenario comes from the game allowing external markets and the players choosing to trade their STARBITS. It will be very interesting watching how this plays out, especially with what happens to the bulk of the STARPRO, given it's consolidated in one whale wallet.