The Road (Grind) To My First Land Plot: Update #2

Of course I try to earn a SPL Plot when HIVE decides to run up to make this far more difficult.

In short, my HBD is becoming much weaker because payouts are still in HBD for some reason. The STEEM that I have powering down is also getting far weaker because I don't have easy off-ramps to get into HIVE without getting a haircut on Hive-Engine with the trading gap.

While it's great that HIVE is appreciating in price, it's making swaps and projecting tricky because everything I wanted to swap into HIVE is getting weaker. Hive-Engine shows the HIVE cost of Plots at a range of 535 BID - 640 ASK, so it looks like the USD value is adjusting to be consistent for now. While this is a relief, I don't know if I can rely on that as I'm still earning/pooling liquid funds to grab one.

While it's probably better to just get this over with and buy a plot outright, that wasn't the idea. Earning it organically with new funds was the principle I'm trying to adhere to.

Here are the current funds I've pooled after 8 days:

• 30.318 liquid HBD from post payouts worth ~22.6 HIVE. Ouch.

• 137.801 liquid STEEM parked and watching HIVE spike. Lack of exchange access is hurting me here. Ionomy was recommended, but the volume is small, and there's a gap in the book. Hive-Engine is probably my only out here. This is worth about $80 or 60 HIVE before I try to trade it for a haircut.

• 137.738 STEEM to become liquid tomorrow. Sigh. Same. Worth about $80 or 60 HIVE now.

• $160 worth of OSMO staking/LP payouts accumulated by allocating $20 of my overall earnings daily. I don't want to adjust this as I'm reinvesting the rest of my daily payouts elsewhere. I'm at peace with calling this free money spent on the Plot despite the ratio. OSMO has performed well, I make plenty more daily from it, and it's from a free airdrop anyway.

• 1,145.64 SPT Tokens from blogging I'm trying to sell for just over 9 HIVE on Hive-Engine. I made an open order and doubt it'll get filled any time soon, but I'll try to not dump at the ask. This was a nice surprise, which offsets some of the HBD/STEEM>HIVE pain in the microcosm of this exercise.

• 1,685 DEC worth about $16.85 or ~12.5 HIVE at this time. This is from Splinterlands matches. Every bit helps!

• 4.893 SPS worth about $2.20 or 1.64 HIVE from airdrops in the last 8 days. This isn't going to play a factor, but I'll still track it.

• $33.25 USD in pending payouts, but half of this will be paid out in liquid HBD, which I'll need to swap for HIVE. I just don't want to swap right now while HIVE is pumping, but note that it may continue. I'm not sure what to do now and hope that payouts start coming as liquid HIVE instead.

Adjustments:

• I should blog more about Splinterlands gameplay or my experience to possibly earn more SPT tokens to offset the weakened value of the assets I wanted to accumulate and swap into HIVE.

• Accept the pain of trying to earn a Plot during a time of high market volatility that makes tracking more complicated.

• Do I just swap in real-time and call it an opportunity cost, or wait for HIVE to relax to not be forced to trade at bad ratios? If Plot prices remain constant in USD, I think this will be offset a bit, but if the prices start to jump in HIVE, then this will not be as fun of a process.

• I'm currently not earning vouchers by locking up more funds for this airdrop ticket to have the privilege to buy packs without the fear of larger new guilds negotiating mass pack buys when the public sale begins. Something about this forced investment just to get packs irks me greatly and I won't give in to being forced to do it just to have fun in the game. It's good to create value and utility, or even new tokens that'll create more revenue for the team, but creating red tape isn't cool. Rationalize it or not.

• I'm removing the sale of my Hive Punks as a factor here. I took one off the market and the other will take a miracle to sell as a common among commons, with volume grinding at the moment. I won't try to sell any of my other 21 right now. I bought them for fun and to hold for a while.

• Again, the current BID/ASK for a Plot is 535-640, down from the original 850 HIVE target. While this is still close to the USD price, the cost of getting the HIVE via the tokens I planned on swapping is growing as the main challenge here. I'll try to stay patient.

Other:

I haven't bought any cards since I started this, something I would've done with some of my DeFi and blogging earnings. I also haven't gotten any more Hive Punks, something I would've also done. I hope this single plot of land will be worth it.

For now, I'll just keep accumulating and try to see if STEEM has a pop vs HIVE in the short term, and hope that the spread on Hive-Engine isn't too bad so I can liquidate those old tokens.

Any ideas or advice?

What type of Splinterlands posts do people usually like to see? I don't think I want to stretch it and post about my daily quest battles to milk rewards, but if that's the game to play...

Apologies for my frustration. I do this to myself by trying to have worth ethic and principles to commit to a cause for the lesson and accomplishment, even if it's just a point of data on a blockchain.

In the meantime, I'll hope that my Plot will generate Golden Dragon Egg NFTs.

Thanks for following and all of your support,
@steemmatt