Hello! We are all here in the crypto world and even if we stay in our HIVE bubble, we probably all hear when big things are happening in the crypto space. 2022 has not been a good year for those who hold crypto, with the value of virtually every coin (and clearly, even some stablecoins) taking a nose dive. Sure there were games where you could win (like picking up LUNA at $1-ish and selling at $7 to 7x your investment within an hour), but that's gambling more than anything.

Splinterlands hasn't been immune to any of that at all and neither has HIVE. We have been going through rough times for a while now - which makes sense, as we definitely flew too close to the sun with the late 2021 craze. Now we are all hurting whenever we look at our wallets, but many of us also likely expect this to just be a small setback. I'm sure everyone has a different strategy/plan to get through this - so in this post I want to explain mine! It isn't anything very special, but I like rambling, so let's dive in!

Dealing With Downswings

First of all, let's talk about how I'm getting through this mentally. We haven't had a crazy amount of our money in crypto, ever (we share investments with my girlfriend) so it is never horrible, but still - losing nearly 50% of our wallets, even if it's just on a small part of our portfolio.. Not a happy moment.

But I am not worried at all. The way this works for me is that I simply do not consider money I have in crypto as.. actual money. To me, it becomes like monopoly cash the moment I buy any NFTs or cryptocurrencies. This shift in mindset really allowed me to feel good regardless of the situation. The reason I feel this way is that I only ever put extra money into crypto. Not even the "extra" money that would otherwise be for fun - the extra EXTRA money, after I've set aside what I call "pleasure budget" for things like travelling, treating myself with new gadgets, etc.

For me, crypto is simply money that is kind of thrown away, with the caveat that there's a chance I make it big thanks to this throwing - I wouldn't take it our unless it got crazy big anyway, so if it's gone.. It's the same to me as when it was average.

Accumulation

Alright, that's the mental part, but what about Splinterlands? Well, as any crypto psycho will tell you - another name for bear market is "accumulation phase". That is exactly what I want to do. But what does that entail?

First of all, with the current inflation - even if the Netherlands is handling it pretty well compared to other countries I know details of - there is very little "extra EXTRA" money. This means I am not currently planning on putting any new FIAT into Splinterlands, unless I manage to get some side gigs - but that's fairly unlikely.

I will be using SPL and HIVE in general to generate more resources in order to purchase more cards and assets in general. So what is it that I should buy exactly? Well, there are a few options:

• Dark Energy Crystals. The soft peg of DEC is $0,001 and well.. we are currently below it. This would make DEC a great buy, but as usual - there are caveats. The only thing that is pegging DEC is potions and CL packs. Potions can be bought with credits, while CL packs are available for even cheaper on the secondary market. Even so, DEC is a good choice, as it is pretty safe - it will eventually float towards peg, meaning I wouldn't be losing money - and i'd make my SPS airdrop higher!
• Splintershards. SPS is crazy cheap - but I honestly am not considering getting SPS. DEC would create me tons of SPS anyway so I'd rather go for that. I would also have to spend quite a bit of HIVE, as that one went really low, meaning I wouldn't really be in a much better spot than if I just held HIVE. (which I partially plan on doing, I'm a believer!)
• Cards. This is the one I am most excited about and would like to talk about more in detail.

What Cards Do I Buy?

So, I don't have much of an investment to work with - I only really am willing to move post rewards such as SPT, some HIVE (but only from SPL posts), as well as a bunch of generic tokens like BEE, etc. This means I need to choose the cards carefully and there are a few potential strategies to go for.

First of all, reward cards. This is one of the simplest ideas, as reward cards are fairly close to burn value (usually 2-3x), so you'll never lose that much. On top of that, it is possible to make a rough calculation on where they will go out of print - although that can change with the new reward system! There will be a ton of those printed once it's over though, so their value will likely never be really high. There is enough cards to make roughly 20k maxed versions of each common, a few less rares and epics, as well as legendaries. While this does not seem like a high number, keep in mind few players will ever need maxed cards.

In the end, I have decided that I will use the non-HIVE rewards on my posts to fuel this strategy - this means I will add roughly $5-10 each week, depending on the week, of reward cards to my collection. I will decide which ones as I do it, prioritizing getting enough to max all of them first (but not actually combining). This is not a lot, but as I said - small investments. I will also decide between Gold and Regular on the spot.

Next up, is CL cards. Chaos Legion cards are the ones with the highest print rate yet, so they are also naturally the cheapest. I do not expect them to go much lower than they are right now, but also think they will stay within 10-20% of their current prices for a fair bit. No big pumps expected. This gives me time to accumulate! For this goal, I want to use the HIVE earned on my two weekly SPL posts (or more, depends on my creativity I guess!). I do post them to the SM challenges, so it usually means I can get at least $10 liquid weekly - just enough to pick some CL scraps. Whatever DEC I get from battling and quests will also go towards this goal.

So what will I buy? Well, I will start by buying summoners. They are the core of SPL gameplay and will allow me to use my levelled reward cards, as well as give me a reason to further upgrade my CL monsters. I should be able to get a few level 3 summoners within a month for sure - especially if I start with Sloan, the cheapest one!

Closing Words

Here it is, that's what I am gonna do! Accumulate what I can - what I didn't mention is that if I do manage to find an extra source of income, I would like to put some of it into SPL as well - such an influx would be great to get extra CL packs, or even get myself maxed for Silver! Let me know what you're going to do - are you selling? Accumulating? Sitting through the storm?

Since it's a gaming-related post, here is a bunch of referral links of mine - if you're not playing any of the games I've written about, give them a try! I wouldn't write about bad games.. well, not without saying they're bad anyway. So, here they are:

SPLINTERLANDS - Splinterlands is the poster child of the HIVE blockchain. Join now through my referral link to get a few cards from me!

RABONA - Join the football management game through my referral link to receive enough RBN to not have to worry for a few seasons!

RISING STAR - Here's the referral link to Rising Star. Start your way to mega stardom now!