Lately, one of the biggest concerns in Splinerlands was the situation of Dark Energy Crystals [DEC]. By the end of the SPS airdrop, will there be any value? What is the faith of DEC by July? Let's dissect it a bit shall we!

Current Situation

DEC currently is valued pretty low. Here's a picture from coingecko.

We are currently 83% from the highest point of DEC (not including the first few days that I have no idea why the value of DEC shot up like that). In any case, DEC doesn't look too good, mainly because it is the in-game currency you can earn from playing ranked battles.

Obtaining DEC in-game

Currently DEC is earned from selling cards in the market or from playing ranked battles (or even tournaments). The higher DEC is, the better it is to play as the amount earned in a match is related to the amount in the DEC reward pool.

DEC purpose

As far as I can tell, DEC is used primarily for in-game purchases. Some times people would choose to convert their DEC to credits just to be sure that the value doesn't change. The other usage is to upgrade the guild, which leads to other bonuses. This deserves a separate article so I won't go in-depth here.

My Worries

Currently the value of DEC is derived from the SPS airdrop. Basically the APR from getting SPS from the SPS airdrop is what motivates people to hold or even buy more DEC. The SPS airdrop is set to end by around July, so assuming the airdrop is gone, what other reason will people have to hold DEC?

Well, the answer to my last question is none. There is no value that DEC gives except for SPS airdrop. What about all the other things such as in-game purchases and guild? Technically the in-game purchases change depending on the value of DEC so that's not really affected, meaning you'll just get more DEC because it's always USD based. As for the guild upgrades, it's not enough to sustain the value of DEC by itself. So where's the hopium?

Hopium!

I remember that the team plans to add more value to DEC through land. This will be great news but the question is when will it take? Plus, these are just plans so there's nothing set in stone yet. With more updates, more use case will also come up to add value to doing ranked battles. This is an important part of the system so I highly doubt the team isn't thinking of a sustainable solution to this.

What to do?

I personally don't hold much DEC. All my DEC has either been converted to SPS or credits. The rest are just there to be converted during the next pump. I am not too sure of the future

Credits

• Cover photo created using canva.com and the included elements
• Logos and images used are from Splinterlands
• Divider by @freeztag