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Disclaimer: This is for educational purposes and not financial advice in any way. DYOR!

I've been playing splinterlands for about 9 months now and I can say that there has been a lot of changes. 9 months is a long time but it sure is a short period for all the huge things that have happened in splinterlands. The first thing I got involved with was Land before checking out the Chaos Legion cards. Now I have properly delved into Splinterlands and have gotten to really understand the evolving ecosystem. A couple of developments that I have witnessed include Modern and Wild, Riftwatchers, Tower Defense, Runi, other gameplay changes and so on. Among all these, one of the (if not the most important) development for me is the Splintershards token or SPS as it is popularly known.

I joined the SPS train about 2 months to the end of the airdrop but I managed to secure above 600 SPS from that airdop. I have gotten to learn more about the token which is why I am always shocked to see people neglect it. Many players are solely interested in Land, Cards and other assets (which are awesome) but don't put much thought in the SPS token itself.

I get it, SPS has not been performing so great and that's got a of people discouraged. According to coingecko, the All Time High of SPS is $1.07. That's a far cry from the current $0.029 that's got investors worried. I mean, just look at this bleeding chart;

_{from coingecko}

We are hopefully just coming out of a bear market but it looks like SPS is not recovering as much as other cryptos. What is going on? Well, I don't know. Many people would say that the low value of SPS was caused by some "mistakes" by the company. I don't know what to say about that. What I can say is that the reason many people may not be interested in SPS right now may be because it does not have many use cases or at least not as many as we expect. Not yet.

What is SPS?

Splinterlands says that SPS is the game's governance token that provides "increasing levels of decision-making ability and control over the product to the player-base, asset owners, and other stakeholders." The "product" here being the splinterlands game itself. This means that if Splinterlands is to become more decentralized, then SPS is a key piece we should not ignore. This major step helped set up a much needed DAO especially given that the token is fully controlled by the holders. That's great but then there is the catch - the SPS needs to be staked.

STAKING

I remember that some players were not happy that they had to stake their SPS tokens in order to participate in the governance and still have to wait four weeks whenever they want to unstake their precious tokens.

This model is clearly something that was developed from the hive power model. Before the unstaking process for HP was made to be 13 weeks, it used to last for 4 weeks with 25% of the total stake getting released every week. Having been in the business for a while (although on the old chain), I think it is a good idea that this model was adopted. This way, anyone that wants to stake would understand that they are making a commitment. This would also help to avoid any power abuse that could arise from easy staking and unstaking. That is definitely a good way to view it.

Staked SPS functions similarly to Hive Power. Players who stake SPS are able to vote on proposals just as it is here on Hive. The more SPS a player stakes, the higher their influence. To me, that is a major reason to buy and stake SPS.

We will also be able to use staked SPS to vote for validators very soon. This is because splinterlands is adopting the Delegated Proof Of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. This is the same as what we use here on Hive when selecting our witnesses.

• Staking Rewards: This is probably the major reason people are currently staking SPS. The bigger your stake, the more rewards you receive on a daily basis. Right now, the APR for staking SPS is 24%. That's really good if you ask me.

• Stake To Play: Alright this feature is not out yet but it will be very soon. Very soon, players would be required to stake SPS in order to play splinterlands. Keyword there is "required". Meaning that owning SPS is necessary for playing Splinterlands. What does this mean? A higher demand for the the token! This is also similar to Hive because users need resource credits to perform activities on the blockchain. Thankfully, just as HP can be delegated, SPS stakers would be able to delegate to other accounts. All these will be out soon according to the roadmap.

_Roadmap

Current Use Cases of SPS

Apart from the ones mentioned above, there are other current use cases of SPS. One of this is that it is the current reward token in the game. Everyone was excited when DEC was replaced with SPS in ranked battles. Now, there is even an incentive to join a guild because we also earn SPS for playing brawls. I don't earn so much in silver league ranked battles but I earn quite a chunk from brawls.

Another use case is that SPS is being rewarded to land owners on a daily basis. This is awesome for me because I own a plot and it earns me some SPS. In the past three days, I have earned 4.086 SPS from my plot. It's not a lot, but it's something.

SPS is also used to purchase certain in-game items. Currently, we need SPS to buy Riftwatchers packs and Validator nodes.

Most Important Goal!

I have tons of goals that I want to achieve on splinterlands this year alone. After thorough evaluation, growing my SPS stake has become my number one priority in the game. I have been learning more about the token and its significance in the game. Initially, I had the goal of having a total of 5k SPS staked by the end of the year. Now, I have doubled that number because why not! I hope to have staked 10,000 SPS by the end of 2023. This is a goal that I am moving hard and fast to achieve.

Right now, I don't really have a concrete plan for reaching my goal. I just have a few moves that I am making right now to keep the hope alive. Currently, my main sources of SPS are;

• Brawls: My guild does really well in Brawls and I earn about 25-35 SPS (give or take) every week from these brawls. As we upgrade out Arena, we should potentially earn more rewards from the brawls.

• DCA with $10 every month: Every month, I will buy some SPS with 10 HBD regardless of the price. I already did this for February and would do it for the rest of the year. Hopefully (or not), the price would remain relatively low so that I can buy as many as possible. Here is how much I bought on the 1st of February;

• Staked and Land Rewards: These rewards seem small initially but they add up quite well. Every week, I earn about 9 SPS from Land rewards and about 5 SPS from staked rewards. Together it adds up to 14 SPS per week currently. As my stake grows, I will earn more staked rewards.

Final Words

I have been overlooking SPS for a long time but now that I have understood its value, I am obsessed with having as much as possible. I have even began to play the game more often just so that I can earn from the ranked battles. Maybe I will advance to gold again and just play with my silver level cards but I don't know if the level of my cards will significantly reduce the amount of SPS I can earn there. I guess I will find out.

The price of SPS is very low right now compared to where it was a year and a half ago. No wonder why some players are not buying up the token. Some newer players also don't understand how the token works. I just hope that more players can be open to learning more about splinterlands and SPS. There is value in this, but it just isn't so clear right now. A little foresight is necessary in a space like this.

That's All For Today, Warrior!

• Unless otherwise stated, all images used in this post are from the Splinterlands game.
• All dividers were made by me with Canva.
• Don't be shy :) Join Splinterlands by clicking on THIS LINK.

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Thanks for your time!