Splinterlands–a skill-based, NFT digital card game available in mobile and desktop– is launching the Splintershards governance token, SPS, set up as a DAO, on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), as per a press release on July 26.
The SPS Governance Token and DAO
The SPS will be central to the Splinterlands ecosystem, allowing the DAO to function autonomously. As per the press release, the objective of the SPS token is to devolve decision-making and control of the product to players, in-game asset owners, and stakeholders.
Accordingly, Splinterlands now plans to airdrop 400 million SPS tokens to players daily over the next year to encourage the accumulation of in-game assets. The amount awarded to a player will depend on the number and collection power of their Splinterlands NFT cards in their respective accounts.
Besides airdrops, Splinterlands offers and promotions aim to encourage the holding of SPS governance tokens. The team has said it will code various aspects of the Splinterlands game into the SPS governance system. Depending on token holders’ approval, these would be updated without the intervention of the Splinterlands development team.
Since the launch of the SPS token on July 26th, 2021, the SPS token has increased in price over 190% with trading volumes exceeding $31M USD.
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) over Ethereum
The decision to launch the SPS token on the BSC was because of transaction fees considerations. They had decided to launch on Ethereum initially. However, due to fluctuating Gas fees primarily caused by scaling issues faced by the legacy network, they opted for the BSC.
The latter’s ecosystem continues to grow as projects leverage the blockchain’s scalable and low-fees environment. Nonetheless, because of code interoperability between Ethereum and the BSC, the team would still migrate to Ethereum if needed. Splinterlands game already runs on the Hive Blockchain.
The interaction between the game and the SPS token shall be handled via oracles randomly chosen by SPS token holders. Oracles will convey information about game transactions on the Hive blockchain to SPS smart contracts on the BSC, receiving SPS tokens as rewards. Splinterlands has also clarified that SPS holders don’t have to initially set up BSC wallets to receive tokens. Instead, all earnings from the Splinterlands game will be locked in the SPS smart contract until the user decides to transfer them to the BSC wallet in a transaction that would require oracles to confirm.
Splinterlands User Base Growth
Following their announcement of the DAO and the SPS token, the user base continues to grow. There are over 130k active players as per the press release, equating to around 10 percent of Splinterlands’ total user base.
Although the initial subscription and daily active user growth was slower in months before the fair launch of the DAO, there has been a significant uptick since the first half of July. During this time, Splinterlands, on average, registered over 950 new users daily.
As per the team’s estimation, there will be over 130k users by the beginning of August, extending from the rate of recent signups. Data from DappRadar shows that Splinterlands processes over 1.3 million transactions every day as the platform handles the uptick of new players.
In addition to new players from the WAX community, the upsurge, the team explained, is because of scholars joining from the Yield Guild Games (YGG). In June 2021, the co-founder of YGG said they were comfortable investing in Splinterlands since they had “a clear plan for guild-based gameplay.”
Their partnership with Splinterlands also gave them early priority access, benefiting their members. YGG has invested in Splinterlands’ in-game assets for their members and also participated in the SPS private sale. Among NFTs acquired by YGG include a big chunk of virtual land in Splinterlands’ upcoming Land Expansion.
