I have been @splinterlands for the entire 6+ years of its public existence. I bought few Alpha Packs before there was a game and later I was buying Beta Packs and even earning them for completing Daily Quests. It only required to win 5 Battles with a given Splinter while playing in a particular Ruleset. One of these Packs were valued at $2 and now things have changed drastically. The current prices while most @splinterlads Tokens and NFTs are around All Time Lows are as following:

• ALPHA - $23.14
• BETA - $8.75
• ORB - $17,20 (Sold for $3)

What changed was that we had more players. Compared to the current player counts, the old Editions of Cards are rare and therefore more expensive. If we need to see a change in prices of other assets, we need either lower supply or more demand.

Growth of Demand Can Be Viral

We used to be on the first page of https://dappradar.com/rankings and now we have fallen to page 4. Even among games @splinterlands is #26 in Monthly Active Users and #27 in Daily Active Users. That is a considerable fall from top and clamping down on inflation or reducing supply will not make a large difference. There are no serious marketing campaigns for the project. Most of the marketing team was let go during the bear market and it is almost a miracle that we even maintain the current numbers.

Above is the results of mostly organic marketing over the last 6 months. Ask yourself what would make you buy a Spellbook;

1. Reducing inflation (Rewards) and burning old Cards.
2. Thousands of players are joining to have fun and earn cryptocurrency.

The first option is a mixed bag and the second option is hard to execute. Once we have a sudden influx of players, it will be easy to maintain that momentum as long as the overall market remain positive. I doubt we will have much of that in 2026 (except for the early parts). New Player Experience with high conversion rate and a strong marketing push is what is going to save @splinterlands from the current predicament!

Airdrops Reward The Most Important Players/Investors

It is easy to get some investment or some gameplay compared to the effort that takes to retain that investment. Unlike real estate or art, cryptocurrency markets are highly liquid and open 24x7. Having some incentives for those who are willing to let go of day trading or swing trading is a prudent move.

Anarchy in The North East

The great thing about the new Airdrop is that there is extra utility given to VOUCHERs. The problem under this system is, I don't know how many Cards I'm going to get at this stage. I burned 20 VOUCHERs in case I had gained 1 Cryptic. I did not meet the minimum chances for a guaranteed Card.

Surprisingly I received 2 Cards from the Airdrop and none of them were Gold Foil. Knowing how many Cards I have before burning VOUCHERs would be a welcome addition to the next Airdrop. I have one more slot left in my first Wagon.

GLX vs SPS for COLONY Airdrop

I did not invest anything into buying GLX. Instead I kept most of the Airdrop received for SPS staking and restaked them. As for COLONY, there is no staking option yet and I have kept 100% of the Airdrop and plan to HODL for a long time.

The Airdrop is set to occur over the course of 5 years with each year having a larger pool of COLONY to be Airdropped. Considering how soon GLX Airdrop ended while there was barely a game, taking 5 years with most of the Rewards allocated towards the end is a good move to generate more excitement as more features and games get released. Follow @arcadecolony and @gls.goals for more updates.

Notice the size of the staked GLX and compare that with the amount of SPS that has been staked. I don't want to post too many screenshots. There are 801,287,508 SPS staked at the moment of writing. That is 5.14X more staked Tokens compared to GLX.

• GLX Price = $0.00058
• SPS Price = $0.00643

Based on HIVE-Engine prices SPS is 11.08X more expensive. At first look it is easy to think that it will be better to invest in GLX and earn COLONY. I will not be foolish enough to consider the the performance of the games behind GLX vs SPS. Additionally, APR for SPS staking is far higher than GLX. IMHO Genesis League Goals is the worst of 4 games launched. This is only a personal taste and there are new gameplay plans to improve gameplay.

I think the best move is to have a small position in GLX (as it already has a strong team + a mainstream partnership) and then have a larger allocation for SPS as it has the most development and the strongest community.