It's been 16 days since I wrote my analysis about how long I estimate Beta Packs will last. Figured I might as well do an update, now that Season 2 is behind us and we're in some sort of intermezzo with the leagues at the moment.

NOTE: All pics are from this website, so I won't source each image individually.

The rate of claiming packs is definitely accelerating. Now there are over 25k packs claimed through questing (compared to 3-4k two weeks ago), while the packs claimed through leagues nearly doubled, Season 2 rewards amounting to a staggering 30k packs.

I suspect this is purely due to more and more people playing more and more. Indeed, even in my case, while I haven't upgraded my deck at all, I finished two leagues higher. More people playing means more better AND weaker opponents at all league tiers.

The player pool has gone up from roughly 1800 to over 3000, which means a 67% increase.
Meanwhile, the number of played matches rose from around 30,000 to over 80,000. That's a 167% increase! And this includes two really slow days during SteemFest, when Steem Monsters transactions had trouble registering on the blockchain.

So the average number of total matches per player is up from 16-17 to 26-27. This is great news! It means people LOVE Steem Monsters and just grind it out over and over again.

This increase is consistent with the increase in claimed packs, which leads us to....

By the looks of it, another 100k beta packs are gone. Forever. No more!

Roughly 50-something thousand have been claimed, while the rest have been bought off the market.
Previously I stated that at the rate at that time, beta packs can't last more than a year, IF nobody buys them anymore. Now, with the new data, if we extrapolate liniarly (and I doubt the beta pack claim/buy rate won't go up exponentially) beta packs wouldn't last more than 6 other seasons, roughly 12 weeks – or 3 months.

Honestly, if we get tournaments by December, I doubt we will have beta packs remaining end of January. Which would transit us beautifully into the next stage of Steem Monsters, going out of beta.

And as a bonus, I do see that Bitcoin may bottom too by then, hence it would make for a poetic transition for swinging out of the crypto bear market and getting Steem Monsters to its next level at the same time.

Until then, just make sure you take advantage as much as you can of this literal beta packs handout that is currently taking place. I doubt we'll ever see it again at this scale.